The penultimate chapter in this Faberry tale. As always - enjoy. x

Quinn stalled through the dark Lima streets as a stranger. The central part of the city was different from the rest, or at least different to the parts she called home. Somehow on the streets with identical houses she didn't feel so isolated, but the low lit downtown streets of the only touristy place in town seemed to make it unavoidably clear to her. Quinn was alone. She'd always been alone, except for when she was with Rachel – something that she had to convince herself was temporary and untrue. She was alone in life and everything she chose to do in it, and that's how it would have to be forever. She'd played her part in Rachel's life and maybe even gotten her back with Finn – couldn't she just be happy for her brunette and let her go? Quinn knew the answer to that question, and it was a simple no. As if it wasn't hard enough to even imagine Rachel with someone else – the thought of that someone else being Finn sent a wave of anger through her. Finn didn't deserve her. Finn wanted her changed and fixed and thought she was broken, but the only broken part of her was actually him. Deep down Quinn knew that if it was someone else that Rachel loved, someone who loved her back just as passionately, then she would let her go – she'd let her be happy. But Quinn couldn't lie and pretend that she thought Rachel stood a chance of happiness with Finn, so she accepted the fact she'd have to live the rest of her life knowing that with one stupid letter she ignorantly brought them back together. Quinn always felt like she killed Sammy, and now she felt like adding Rachel to that list of victims too.

She was a girl that never knew what she wanted; only what she didn't want. She knew she didn't want to go to college and be normal, but didn't even really understand what normal was. Quinn didn't believe normal meant happiness, and her life was definitely anything but normal – but it was also miserable. Maybe it wasn't whether your life was normal that decided your happiness; perhaps it was just the way you chose to see it. Quinn had seen life in a lot of ways, but her favourite one was through Rachel's shade. She could try to convince herself that maybe Rachel's way of thinking just made life seem better, but it was inevitable that it was actually genuinely better – and that was due to that little brunette herself. And now Quinn finally found what she wanted, only to know that she couldn't have it. She wanted Rachel. She wanted them. She wanted to argue with her and dance with her. She wanted to listen to her sing and attack her under the covers and make breakfast with her and be in love. But Quinn didn't think she deserved love, and she definitely didn't think she deserved Rachel. Quinn was finally okay with herself as a person, but sometimes that wasn't enough. She wanted to be okay with someone else too, and Rachel was her someone else.

The wind crashed into Quinn's face as she wrapped her arms around herself and quickened her pace just a little. She felt like crying, but the tears just didn't form. She wondered if that could be because she was over reacting and her body was sending her a wake-up call to toughen up. But she also wondered if maybe tears didn't belong right then because they weren't enough. They wouldn't change anything, they wouldn't take back the letter, and they sure as hell wouldn't give Quinn another chance to get it right with Rachel. But the blonde was stubborn, and so were her tears, causing her to carry on marching home completely unaware of a brunette rushing to put her coat on and grab her purse and stop her in her tracks only a few blocks behind her. That was until she heard her name.

Piercing through the darkness Quinn heard Rachel call out for her from behind, but she didn't stop, not this time. She didn't want to hear about how proud Finn was of her or even listen to her thank her for bringing him back to her. Quinn didn't want to hear it because she knew this time she couldn't take it. This time the tears would be right at home. Relentlessly she found herself picking up her pace into a jog, just like she had every morning that her and Rachel spent together. And just like those mornings she heard another pair of feet behind her. They definitely belonged to Rachel, but there was something different about them too. They were faster, stronger, braver. Quinn felt a hand grab her in the darkness and she nearly trembled as she yanked away.

"Would you just leave me alone!?" she begged in a winced cry of pain, suddenly feeling her cheeks grow damp as the tears streamed down. That's all it took, to see Rachel right there in front of her but know that she wasn't hers – and she never would be. But Rachel didn't let go. "Please?"

"Just wait a second" Rachel said smoothly as the two of them slowly caught their breath. "I just have one more letter for you to read, okay?" she said as she removed the slip of folded white paper from inside her purse. Quinn was not amused.

"What the hell is the matter with you!?" she protested with utter outrage, angrily wiping at her face to destroy any evidence. Having Rachel see her like this was the last thing she wanted in that moment. "Just give it to him yourself" Quinn hissed as the letter remained right in front of her. She didn't know why Rachel was doing this to her. She was simply turning the knife. Maybe that's what she deserved for faking the letter from Finn, maybe Rachel really did hate her.

"Just let me say something" Rachel instructed before Quinn could blubber out another insult. "You don't ever have to see me again if you just read this letter, alright?" the brunette told her still clasping the letter with a deep sense of calm. Quinn's hazel eyes darted from it to Rachel in a sense of betrayal. But there was no way out of it for her, and Rachel's offer was masochistically tempting. Rachel and Finn would go away and have lots of disproportioned babies and Quinn would never have to see her again just like she said. Maybe that was the only solution she could handle. She grabbed the letter from the girl's hands and unravelled it.

"This is so fucked up" Quinn protested under her breath, her hands slightly shaking as they held the letter. She knew what it was going to say. She knew that it was just going to be another stupid declaration of love to a jerk that didn't deserve her. She already knew how it would start, just like the previous one, that same ridiculous 'Dear Finn'. There was nothing dear about him in Quinn's eyes.

"Yes. Just read it" Rachel repeated as she watched her, almost expressionless with just a hint of remorse.

"Dear Quinn" Quinn read out as if it was nothing. And then it hit her like a lightning bolt. She didn't say his name, she said her own – and she said it because it was written there right in front of her in Rachel's stupidly neat handwriting. But she read it again just in case her eyes had deceived her. Then Quinn scanned it once more, every single letter really did belong to her name – her breath hitched. Hesitantly she looked from the paper to Rachel with disbelief engraved in her expression – but Rachel was silent. Rachel was smiling.
Quinn unwillingly tore her eyes from Rachel and continued a little quieter. "I know you wrote the letter-" the blonde stopped and looked back at the other girl with a deep sense of guilt – but Rachel just remained watching her with the same brave expression. She wanted to apologise to Rachel, but she couldn't really form the words, especially considering she hadn't finished the letter. Quinn took another breath and continued. "The only way you could-"

"Meet my crazy is by doing something crazy yourself" Rachel continued for her, her brown eyes never leaving Quinn's as she recited the letter she knew off by heart. "Thank you" Rachel added, just as the letter said. But she wasn't finished yet. She looked up at Quinn in the darkness and took it in for a moment. She didn't want to waste a second of this, a second of Quinn. She wanted to remember how her wild blonde hair had stuck to her cheeks as they clung to the places her tears had fallen. She wanted to cherish the way her eyes looked emerald green through the sharpness of the tears that finally washed away everything she had ever tried to be. She wanted to keep Quinn to herself because they were each others. And so Rachel said the next sentence on that page, the one that she'd wanted to write ever since that ridiculous dinner at Santana's house. "I love you" she told her, annunciating each syllable with both clarity and confidence. It was the most truthful thing she'd said in her entire life.

Quinn's mouth turned into a sad smile as Rachel continued.

"I knew it the moment that I met you. I'm sorry it took so long for me to catch up – I just got stuck. Rachel" Rachel finished as Quinn blinked through the darkness at her lost for words as her heart heaved under her black trench coat. A silence fell between the two of them."I wrote that a week ago, Quinn."

"You wrote that a week ago?" Quinn managed, her voice only trembling a little and finally regaining its strength. "When we were still practicing for the dance?"

"Yes I did" Rachel said boldly. But Quinn's reaction, as always, was not what she expected.

"You let me lie to you for a week?" the blonde complained with a hint of insult and Rachel's lips warmed up to a smile just by seeing her like that. Quinn had a fire inside of her that no amount of tears could put out.

"Yes I did" she admitted. "I was trying to be romantic." Rachel admitted bashfully with a crooked smirk.

Quinn looked away as she took in a deep breath, refusing to let the tears come back. But Rachel didn't leave her side, she just watched her in the same way she always had. This time she was just brave enough to tell Quinn what her eyes had always said.

"You...love me?" Quinn softly and unsurely asked, hesitance thick in her voice as she looked back at Rachel.

"Yeah, I do" Rachel confirmed, knowing that she'd never stop telling Quinn that sentence if that's what it would take for her to believe it. A warm smile drew its way across Rachel's lips as Quinn nodded, letting herself belief it with an almost silent 'okay'. And then her lips spoke for themselves. With a leap of faith Quinn brought herself closer to Rachel, softly meeting her lips with her. Rachel smiled into the kiss as she drew her hand up to Quinn's face to tuck those wild strands away and pull her sweetly in to her touch. The familiar scent of one another's light perfume intermingled between fragile breaths. Briefly Quinn drew back to smile back at Rachel through her once tear stained eyes, a barely audible chuckle escaping her lips as Rachel tugged her back and crushed her lips to hers as they locked. Rachel hung her arms around Quinn's neck as her blonde ruffled hair tickled the back of her own hands. Quinn held Rachel's back in a gently passionate grasp, pressing her closer to herself, the letter scrunching up between the two of them as the rest of Lima seemed to melt away in the darkness. That moment was theirs. All the moments were – the running, the dance room, the diner. There were only a few things that made sense to both Quinn and Rachel, and one of those was the two of them. No one could take it away from them, not even Finn Hudson. All that Finn got was Rachel whispering to him an apology for trying to kill him and then wishing him the best followed by an unemotional goodbye. That was all Finn had, regardless if he wanted more. Rachel could've had him, but she never really wanted that – not truthfully. That was it, Rachel wasn't sure when she stopped loving Finn but the fact she had was abruptly clear, just as the fact that it had happened long before she even came to the hospital. Finn was an idea, a goal, a mission she could focus on as she was driven by the idea that she needed to be fixed. But maybe it was just the part of her that had the idea that needed to go, leaving the real Rachel to finally be happy. Quinn was a reality, a dreamlike reality that Rachel wanted to sleep in forever. She was there in her arms and on her lips and in her heart.

And Rachel never wanted her to leave.