A/N: I was on a month-long vacation during Faberry Week, so I wasn't even aware of it until last Monday. I figured I might as well write this, because Future!Faberry with kids gives me warms fuzzies inside. I did proofread this, but since I was the one who wrote it and I know what I mean, it's easy for me to miss things. Let me know if you spot any mistakes!
"Mom! Chord's poking me!"
"Only 'cause you hit me!"
"I did not! Mom, now Chord's lying!"
"I am not! Tattletale!"
"Take it back!"
"Why? It's true!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Mom! Tell Chord and Lucy to be quiet! I'm doing vocal exercises and they're annoying me!"
Rachel gave a heaving sigh and directed a glare at her wife in the driver's seat. She had no idea what had possessed Quinn to rent a car and drive from their home in Brooklyn to Walt Disney World, Florida with their three children. Clearly she'd never seen any movie about children and drive trips ever, because then she would have seen this coming.
Hell, Rachel had tried to talk her out of it. Three young kids all squished together in the back seat of a car was not a situation that would end well, no matter how you looked at it. But Quinn had said that it would be easier than getting the kids through an airport, and that this way, if they bought the kids anything in Disney World, they wouldn't have to figure out how to repack it – they could just stick it in the trunk. And besides, she really wanted this to be a family vacation. Rachel understood why – Quinn's parents had never been really involved, and they were always too busy with work or church functions to do traditional family things like family vacations. Rachel had gotten all that quality family time growing up; Quinn hadn't.
Ultimately, it was the understanding of what Quinn wanted for their children – for them to have a better childhood than she had – that had led to Rachel acquiescing. Oh, and the sex Quinn had used to convince her had been pretty fantastic – yeah, that might have played a factor in her decision.
So now they were five hours into the two day drive – it could be less but they were spending the night in North Carolina, because they didn't want to drive twenty or so hours straight – with their children, and Rachel was about to explode. The kids had started arguing thirty minutes into the drive, and hadn't stopped since.
"Mom, Lucy's looking out my window!" their oldest daughter, Harmony, whined.
"I'm in the middle – I don't have a window," Lucy, their youngest child, pointed out.
"Then look out Chord's."
"No way!" Chord, their middle child and only son, protested. "This is my window! Look out the front!"
"But it's not pretty out the front window. All I can see is the road!"
"Too bad."
"Chord, Harmony," Rachel scolded, "be nice to your sister. Why does it really matter if she looks out your window?"
The replies of, "'Cause it's my window," and, "It's mine," came simultaneously.
"Well then look out the window yourselves and you won't have to see Lucy looking," Rachel suggested.
"No way!" Chord protested. "I'll still know she's looking!" Harmony huffed in agreement.
Rachel sighed again and hit her head against her own window. "I hate you," she muttered to Quinn, as their children continued bickering loudly in the back seat.
Quinn glanced away from the road for a second – but only a second; her car crash in senior year had made her a very careful driver – to smile back at Rachel serenely. "No you don't," she said, her voice gentle. The arguing kids seemed to have no effect on her. If anything, she seemed to be enjoying it, and Rachel knew why. It felt like something so typically family-like to her, and Quinn was a very family oriented person who had not come from a very family-oriented family.
Rachel, on the other hand, still loved her children very deeply, but did not love their current arguing. It was giving her a major headache, and she was beginning to rethink her position against over-the-counter drugs to deal with everyday ailments.
However, when she glanced back and saw Harmony taking control of the situation and strictly dividing up their space, she had to smile. Quinn often said that Harmony was a mini-Rachel, and the petite diva couldn't deny it.
Rachel had carried Harmony and Chord, though Chord looked much more like his bio dad (Kurt, who had admittedly been a little freaked out when she and Quinn had asked him to be their sperm donor, but had agreed after much prodding from Rachel). Quinn had carried Lucy, their youngest child, when she'd really wanted another kid, but Rachel's Broadway career was heating up and there was no way she could take nine months off. Sam had offered to be the dad for her, and the result was an adorable little blond girl who looked like the daughter of Barbie and Ken (which, admittedly, she sort of was).
And Rachel wouldn't deny that she was beyond grateful for her family, and that she loved her wife and their children to pieces, but….
"Mom! Lucy's on my side!" Harmony yelled, making both moms wince slightly. That girl had a set of pipes rivaling Rachel's.
"I am not!"
"Yeah you are; you passed the line!"
"What line? I don't see one!"
"I showed you where the line was. Now move over."
Lucy gave a dissatisfied grumble, but scooted away from her sister obediently – which, of course, got Chord started. "Now she's on my side! Scoot back over!"
"No!" Harmony protested immediately, as Lucy started to shift back closer to her. "Then she'll be on my side again!"
"Where am I supposed to sit?" Lucy demanded in frustration.
Rachel turned to Quinn with a pleading look in her eyes, and Quinn sighed.
"HEY!" she yelled, and all noise from the back seat stopped. While their kids loved and respected both their mothers, Rachel was quicker to raise her voice, so it didn't mean as much when she yelled. But when Quinn did… "You three are giving your mom a terrible headache. Do you like that you're hurting your mom?"
Harmony and Chord quickly said they didn't, and Lucy shook her head 'no' rapidly with wide eyes.
"And you are being absolutely horrible to each other! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You know we don't treat anyone that way, especially family. What do you think Uncle Kurt would think if he saw you right now? He'd be so disappointed in you."
The kids bowed their heads. They loved their Uncle Kurt, and they didn't want to disappoint him.
"You know, he, Uncle Blaine, and Rory were supposed to meet us in Orlando and let you guys see the new twins," Kurt and Blaine had adopted a little boy from Ireland a few years ago, and had just added twins, a girl and a boy named Elizabeth and Elijah (Ellie and Eli for short), to their family with Santana as the surrogate (because Kurt had said he adored her figure, skin tone, and natural beauty, and Santana couldn't refuse after her ego had had that much stroking), and Chord, Lucy, and Harmony had been so excited to hear they were going to meet them, "and Auntie Tana and Aunt Brittany were supposed to be there, too, but with how you're all acting, I think I'll tell them not to bother. They wouldn't want to waste their time with such mean little children." Of course, she'd never cancel their visit, but her threat had the intended effect.
The kids' heads snapped up, their eyes wide with panic, and they began throwing out promises of how good they would act from now on, as long as they got to see the family – pretty please with ice cream and a cherry on top?
"Hmm," Quinn murmured, pretending to consider their please. "Okay, as long as you promise you'll be good for the rest of the drive."
"We promise, we promise!" they chorused eagerly.
And for the next few hours, the car was quiet, with Lucy reading, Chord playing on his DS, and Harmony watching Singing in the Rain on the portable DVD player, with headphones plugged in. Rachel decided to take a nap to ease her headache, and she drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
She awoke to, of course, commotion.
"Mom! Mom! Chord's gonna throw up!"
"What?" Rachel demanded, instantly alert. She whipped around to face the backseat, and saw that Chord did, in fact, look like he was about to vomit. His face was pale and slightly sweaty, his eyes looked miserable, and he was clutching his stomach tightly. He let out a long groan.
"Quinn, pull the car over now," Rachel instructed.
Quinn glanced at her quickly. "I'm trying to find a spot where it's safe to pull over."
"Pull over now!"
Quinn spotted an exit that led to a road that was relatively empty, with open fields on either side, and changed lanes to get closer to it.
"Mom! Don't let Chord throw up on me!"
"Oh hush," Rachel scolded. "Can't you see your bother's sick? Be nice to him."
"Moooom," Chord whined pitifully. "I don't feel good."
"I know baby, I know," Rachel cooed, reaching back and patting his knee. She wanted to pet his hair like she always did when her kids were sick or upset, but she couldn't reach. "We're pulling over right now." Just as the words left her mouth, the car stopped. Rachel was out in an instant, hurrying around the car to Chord's side and helping him out. She led him over to the side of the road and pet his hair soothingly. "It's all right. You don't have to hold it in any more. You'll feel better afterwards, I promise."
Chord gave her a slightly skeptical look, but finally let go his control and leaned over, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the grass below him. Rachel rubbed circles on his back in a comforting gesture, not even grimacing as the boy threw up; years of being a mother to three children had effectively desensitized her to gross bodily functions. By the time he was done, Quinn had joined them outside the car, water bottle in hand, which Chord gladly drank.
After being cooed at by his mothers for a few minutes longer, a now sleepy Chord was led back to the car, where Lucy and Harmony were both leaning as far away from him as possible.
"What if he's contagious?" Lucy whispered, seemingly horrified.
"Car sickness isn't contagious," Quinn told them, and at this Lucy relaxed. But it didn't seem to appease Harmony.
"But what if it is?" she griped. "I can't throw up! Do you know what that will do to my voice?"
Rachel gave Harmony a thoroughly disapproving look that had the girl reluctantly stopping any further complaints.
Chord fell asleep almost as soon as they started driving again. Lucy and Harmony alternated between playing with their dolls and bickering for another hour, and then they too fell asleep. One blissfully silent hour after that, and the family reached the dark parking lot of their hotel.
Rachel looked back at her brood, and her heart almost melted at the sight. All of her children were sleeping peacefully. Lucy had her head on Chord's shoulder and her thumb in her mouth (a bad habit that Quinn and Rachel didn't have the heart to break her of), and Chord's head was resting on top of Lucy's. Harmony, refusing, even in sleep, to be ignored, was stretched across both of their laps, a small, content smile on her cherry lips.
"I almost don't want to wake them," Quinn whispered.
"They look so peaceful," Rachel agreed. She turned to look lovingly at her wife. "They're ours, Quinn. This is our family. I mean, after everything that happened in high school, could you ever have imagined us being here, together, with great careers and three brilliant children – happy?"
Quinn smiled and leaned closer to Rachel, leaning their foreheads together. "It's all I ever wanted," she breathed. "And it's even better than my dreams, because I'm with you. I love you, Rachel Fabray-Berry. You are the love of my life, and the only person I could ever be happy with. And that is never going to change."
"I love you too, Quinn." She leaned forward and pressed her lips against her wife's, trying to express all of her emotions through her lips. Her overwhelming love for Quinn – and her unconditional love for their children. No matter if the kids drove them insane sometimes, she loved them with all her heart, because they were hers and they were Quinn's – they were theirs. And she knew Quinn felt the same.
The moment was broken though, as Chord, who had always been a light sleeper, apparently awoke and cut through the silence with, "Ew! Parents kissing!"
Or course, his loud exclamation woke his sisters up, who were soon yelling in a similarly grossed-out way, that soon turned to yelling at each other when they all realized they'd been sleeping in a huddle, and had therefore crossed onto each other's sides. Rachel and Quinn simply smiled at each other, because this was their family, and they wouldn't change anything for the world.
A/N: So, what did you think?
Oh, and for those of you waiting for me to udate the second (and last) part of Queen of Hearts, my other Faberry story, just know that I am, in fact, working on it, and it should hoepfully be up within the next few days, though since my schedule for those days is pretty packed, it might take a little longer. Thanks for your understanding.