Title: Her Voice Was Soft and Cool
Pairing: Quinn/Brittany
Rating: R
Length: 2, 250
Spoilers: Audition
Summary: Quinn hasn't had a lot of visitors since she brought the baby home.
Notes: Reposted from old LJ.

"She's totally flirting with me."

Quinn looks up from the daybed in the nursery, almost too tired to even do that much. Tired of getting up to feed the baby every three hours, tired of the endless hours of crying, tired of working out to get back in shape before school starts, tired of everyone else being on vacation while she was stuck in this nursery. Tired of everything.

"She's a baby," Quinn starts, but she cuts herself off because there's no denying that the kid is quite taken with Brittany. Her daughter is a bit of a brat, picky about who she doesn't scream for. But with Brittany, she takes a bottle with no qualms, cooing contentedly and holding Brittany's thumb while she feeds. Quinn frowns. Her daughter doesn't even do that with her.

"Don't worry; I won't date your baby. I can't believe Puck though. If I were him, I'd be here every second of every day. Look at her little fingernails!"

Quinn's frown grows at the mention of Puck. For all his grandstanding about being a good father, he had only been to visit twice since they had brought her back from the hospital; holding the baby like she were a squirming football, shifting uncomfortably whenever she made a sound, and passing her off once she started crying. In retaliation she had filed to change their child's name, but the look on Puck's face when she came over with the blank form for him to sign had made her feel guilty enough that she made a compromise when she had returned home.

But even Finn had come over more than Puck, bringing the baked goods that she had fallen in love with during her short stay at his house and wearing an apologetic smile, as if he were the one who had done something wrong. When he holds the baby, his big hands supporting her fully, he looks at her as if searching for a little trace of him – hoping her eyes will turn brown and match his or that she'll end up with his smirk.

"I wouldn't have even known," he says and Quinn closes her eyes because she can't even handle knowing that if Rachel hadn't spilled the beans that he probably would have gone his whole life not knowing. He kisses the top of the baby's downy head and looks at Quinn and tells her, "If you need, like, money or something – anything, you know you can ask me."

It's on nights like those that Quinn finds herself curled around her daughter, tears streaming down her face as the baby sleeps. Finn's selflessness makes her feel like some sort of monster who belongs in a children's book – something with claws and fangs that hides under beds and hurts innocent people.

The only regular visitors that come to see her munchkin (she's playing around with nicknames now, trying to find one that fits the hazel eyed baby who stares at everything with a curious gaze) have been Mercedes and Brittany. Santana came once with Brittany before school had ended, but Brittany told Quinn that she had to get surgery this summer she hasn't come by since (which is bullshit, Quinn's just pretty sure that Santana eats children at night and doesn't want to strike too close to home).

"She looks so much like you." Quinn's head snaps up again as Brittany sits down next to her, the bottle set aside. The baby stares up at Quinn with her wide eyes, hand reaching out before she decides against it and shoves it in her mouth.

"She looks like a baby," Quinn replies, feeling suddenly cold at her lack of maternal gushing. She loves her daughter – she does; she loves staring at her and imagining what she'll look like in ten years, she loves the quiet afternoons spent in rocking chairs. But she's still worried about whether or not she'd take a bullet for her. She's hoping that maybe once she gets back down to her regular weight that there won't be so much resentment between her and her offspring.

"She looks like yourbaby," Brittany counters, effectively drawing the baby's gaze to her by running her finger down the bridge of the little girl's tiny nose. "She's got your cheeks and your nose and your eyebrows and I think her hair is gonna get lighter."

Quinn stares down at the baby in Brittany's arms, looking to see herself mirrored back in some slight way, but mostly she just sees a baby. A good looking one, she'll take credit for that, but a baby that could belong to anyone as far as she could tell. The sun is setting outside and turning the room orange and she looks at Brittany – with her bright eyes and pleased expression – and can't help but think that the baby looks more like her in this moment than Quinn herself.

"Oh, big yawns from the little girl," Brittany comments as the baby's face scrunches. The blue-eyed girl stands with a grace that Quinn could only dream of possessing and strides across the room, laying the child down in the ornate crib Quinn's mother had bought. Brittany smiles at Quinn and Quinn resents her a little for it, but she doesn't glare back like she wants to.

"I'm so fucking tired," Quinn mutters spitefully to no one and nothing in particular, and in return Brittany's face scrunches not unlike the baby's. Before she can blink, she finds herself being lead to the bathroom. The water is running in the tub and Brittany's dumping everything she can into the porcelain basin – bubble bath, oils, salts, everything. Deft fingers are undoing the buttons on her dress and unlatching her ugly nursing bra. Quinn's been naked in front of Brittany a hundred times before, but now she feels even more embarrassed to be standing in front of the blonde goddess. Quinn's stomach has a prominent roll, accompanied by a few stretch marks on her forever-expanded hips. Cellulite dimples on her ass and the top of her thighs, but Brittany seems to take no notice as she strips Quinn of her underwear.

Walking on Sunshine is hummed as she's lowered into the near-scalding water, rivulets sluicing over her body as the tall girl brings a washcloth up to her shoulders. Quinn allows this for a little while, eyes drooping as her tired muscles relax for what seems to be the first time in a year. As if on instinct, her hand snaps up to grasp Brittany's wrist as the corner of the washcloth slides against her nipple. She shifts uncomfortably in the water and takes the cloth herself, resuming Brittany's motion.

Brittany, to her credit, brushes the incident off without mention and continues to chatter endlessly. Though the girl is usually smiling and cheerful, she's not exactly known for being quite this talkative; Quinn knows it's for her benefit and she's silently appreciative. The sound of Brittany's voice keeps her thoughts from pushing to the front of her head to drive her insane or bring her to tears. In a moment of surprising playfulness, the young mother brings a handful of bubbles close to her mouth and blows them in Brittany's direction.

When the temperature has cooled and the bubbles have become nothing but soapy foam on the surface of the water, Quinn finally hoists herself out only to be greeted by a fluffy towel from Brittany. The (natural) blonde continues to prattle on, helping Quinn dry off and leading her back to her new old room to sit her in front of her vanity. Brittany is careful as she brushes out Quinn's hair, her mouth finally closed as she concentrates on getting rid of each tangle without it hurting Quinn. Over and over her arm raises and slides down until Quinn's hair is shining in the dim twilight coming from the window.

Quinn catches Brittany's eye in the mirror and the dancer smiles at her, slow and easy, eyes hooded just a little bit and Quinn can't help but shiver. If that's the look Brittany gives Santana, it's no wonder why the brunette turns into a whole new person around her. It's seductive and playful and smoldering and Quinn's so tired of being tired. When Brittany kisses her neck, she welcomes it with a tilt of her head.

Quinn's hair is still damp as it hits the pillow, but she has a dozen on her bed so she knows swapping it out for the night won't be any kind of an issue. Brittany's lips alternate between being feather light and just possessive enough as they switch back and forth between Quinn's top and bottom lip and the Christian girl finds it just dizzying enough return the kisses, hand tangling in the long hair that's brushing against her shoulders. Brittany's hands don't move – one supports her while the other softly strokes Quinn's hip over the soft material of the towel – but her lips soon get restless.

Scarcely aware of her quickening breath despite the languid pace of the kisses, Quinn closes her eyes and leans her head to the side again as Brittany's moist lips cover her from cheek to shoulder and back again. She knows if she opens them she'll see something she doesn't want to. Whether it be the ever-oppressive gaze of Jesus Christ or her own reflection in the mirror, she doesn't know. And she doesn't want to know. She wants to just keep breathing in the too-sweet smell of Brittany's Hollister perfume as the blonde makes her way for second base.

The tentative squeeze of her breast finally draws Quinn's attention back to the girl above her, her eyes only needing to peek open and catch a glimpse of that smoky gaze for her to nod for some sort of consent. The towel is loosened and pulled down and Brittany's head ducks down to softly kiss below Quinn's collarbone, and the bottle blonde suddenly feels like she's being worshipped again, like she used to feel she so rightly deserved to be. Brittany's touches and kisses feel as if they're being placed on her body with a sort of reverence behind them that makes Quinn want to preen under the attention. It's been so long since she's felt like this.

The cloudy haze of self-satisfaction seems to blind her and it takes Quinn a moment to register where those lips are heading. Brittany's mouth has already met the swell of her left breast before Quinn yanks on her hair.

"No… your mouth… your mouth can't go there," she mumbles, praying to a God, who is probably shunning her for committing such a heinous act as pre-marital sex with another girl, that she doesn't have to give Brittany some explanation of why she doesn't want the dancer's mouth to go where her child's mouth does. The thought alone is enough to make her a little queasy.

But Brittany is one to roll with the punches. Her mouth moves back to Quinn's while her fingers take its place and a taught nipple is rolled between a thumb and a middle finger and it makes Quinn shudder. She lets out a small mewl against Brittany's clever tongue and finds herself rocking against Brittany's body in a rhythm she wasn't aware had even been started until the pelvis above hers hits down against her own.

The hand that was on her breast moves lazily down her stomach, giving her ample opportunity to say no, but she hasn't felt so content in almost a year now. She feels comfortable and hot and in need of whatever Brittany can give her. Brittany's mouth pulls from her, forehead pressing against Quinn's temple as her hand slips into the wetness that surprises Quinn herself. It doesn't take long, because she's more than wound up and Brittany's so incredibly familiar with people and because Quinn just wants this so, so bad. She gasps and gasps, fingers digging into her bedspread until her body deflates against the flower patterned duvet.

Brittany's humming again, her fingers, having been cleaned on the inside of the towel, now tracing nonsensical patterns on Quinn's stomach, and Quinn isn't sure what she's supposed to do now that her heartbeat has returned to normal. When Puck had finished pumping inside her, he had simply done his pants back up and left with a half-wave thrown over his shoulder. She supposed she should return the favor to Brittany, but she was terrified at the very idea of trying to. Girls seemed to require a little more finesse than boys.

She's saved though, by wailing coming from the next room and Brittany's over-eagerness. The blue-eyed girl actually smiles at the sound of the squawking baby and nearly trips over herself in her haste to attend to her. It gives Quinn the jolt of energy and the time she needs to scramble out of bed and put on some pajamas. Brittany returns, smiling triumphantly as she cradles the little girl, clearly having taken care of whatever needs it had.

Quinn smiles in return, one that feels as sincere as she's been able to manage since the baby was born. She walks over to them, running a hand through the soft tuft of downy hair on Elizabeth's head. The baby's face scrunches for a moment before her flailing hand grabs a hold of Quinn's thumb. She shakes it, seemingly as hard as her little arm can manage and when the two girls above her laugh in return, her hazel eyes dart up to search her mother's face. Quinn thinks for the first time that maybe her daughter does look like her. Brittany beams when she says as much.