Chapter Text
The envelope arrived as it always did, four or five days after her birthday.
As always, Quinn Fabray was written neatly across the front, her address just as precise but noticeably smaller right below.
The return address was there, too. As always. No sender, as always. The sender's name didn’t need to be written out for Quinn to know who it was from; it was written all over the cream envelope: in that recognizably neat writing on its front, in its thickness, and in the gold star sticker that adorned its back, serving an extra layer of security for its bulging seams.
The envelope arrived as it always did, four or five days after her birthday, and Quinn repeated the actions that had now become ritual over the years: dump the rest of the mail on the entry table, set her bag gingerly next to it, walk past the kitchen to the couch, place the envelope on the end table, walk down the hallway to the bedroom, change out of her work clothes (black sweater over a white oxford shirt, charcoal blazer on top, dark jeans, brown Chelsea boots) into pajamas (navy Yale hoodie, grey WMHS sweats with warn bottoms, bare feet), wash her face, take out her contacts, walk back down the hall, fix a glass of bourbon (three fingers, two ice cubes) in the kitchen, and eventually plop on the couch.
Quinn sat on the side of the couch farthest from the end table she'd left the letter on. She reached out to the coffee table in the center of the room for her glasses, abandoned next to the book (Living a Feminist Life, Sara Ahmed) she’d left open, face down the night before when her eyelids became heavy and her mind sleepy. She’d probably have to reread the last chapter, she thought, since she'd been reading last night in attempt to distract from the disappointment of coming home to no envelope.
She took a sip of her bourbon, ice cubes tapping against her lips, and peered over the glass's rim at the envelope sitting several feet away. She cut her eyes to the windows across the room quickly, focusing her senses instead on the comfort of the sounds of honking and life seeping in from eight floors below.
Quinn had moved to New York three years ago now, after six years in New Haven earning first her B.A. in English (with a concentration in Creative Writing) and then an M.A. in English while she worked two years at Yale University Press. It had been an easy choice to make, to get her Master's. She wasn't really sure about grad school at first, but she'd finally broken up with Puck and didn't know where to go next. She'd spent her time in undergrad trying—and often failing—at being herself, not really thinking beyond four years. Her senior thesis advisor, who'd become like a father to her, encouraged her to stay and continue to the Master's, so she did. He also wrote her a recommendation letter for the Yale UP job, and even though working part time as an assistant editor had amounted to glorified copy editing and grunt work, she learned a lot about publishing and adored her coworkers.
Those two years had been enough time for Quinn to figure out that she wanted to pursue a PhD. She knew that academia, particularly the humanities, was a precarious career path. Getting a PhD would give her the most options in the future for teaching, which is what she loved most. She still wrote on the side, of course, but part of her M.A. involved being a T.A. for freshmen English courses, and she just loved helping students find their voices. She knew what it was like not to have one. So she applied to a few select programs, among them Yale (because her advisor wanted her to stay again. He'd more or less adopted her and she was happy to be have someone she could trust. She owed him a call; it'd been a couple of weeks) and Columbia (because it’s Columbia). There were others, sure, and she got into half the programs she applied to, but if she was being honest she knew there was only ever one choice. She couldn't stay in New Haven any longer. It had been everything she needed leaving Lima and up until that point, but it felt like a stepping stone to something else in the grand scheme of things. Plus, getting a B.A. and an M.A. and a Ph.D. all from the same department at the same university was, well, boring. Limiting. The other schools she got into were fine. Good, really. But she couldn't move to the west coast. She'd be too far away from the people she loved. Whether she saw them or not, it was nice to have them near. To know they were near. So New York was really the only option from the start, and when she got into Columbia she smiled guiltily at her advisor, packed up her apartment, and moved to the city.
She was in the third year of her PhD program now, aiming to finish next spring. Her funding was guaranteed for five years, but she was starting to feel restless. She'd easily passed her comprehension exams in the fall but dissertating was quickly becoming tedious. In only a few months it started to feel like a burden. She wasn’t sure if it was the stress of teaching undergrads while writing, the isolation of the dissertation writing process (her advisor at Yale had warned her the PhD would be lonely but reassured her she could do it, and her advisor here at Columbia had echoed the sentiment, though less gently), or something else. But she was tired. She was ready to be done and she knew that if she just put her head down and wrote, she could defend in the coming academic year and be done.
Quinn had been in New York for three years now. She was twenty-seven (which might as well be thirty, which might as well be forty). Soon she would be Dr. Fabray (or Dr. Quinn, Write-a-Lot Woman, as Sam likes to say). And as always, the envelope came four or five days after her birthday.
She tipped back her glass again, swallowing down the rest of the liquid in one gulp. She set the glass on the table, far enough away from her book so that the condensation wouldn’t pool and dampen its pages. She ignored the coaster a few inches away.
She lunged across the remainder of the couch, flicked on the tabletop lamp—it was getting dark now, but turning on the overhead lights would require her to get up and she was afraid she'd just go back to her bedroom and burrow under the covers—and scooped up the letter.
Turning around so her back rested against the armrest, she stretched out until her toes touched the side of the couch she’d recently occupied.
Quinn stared at the envelope, running her eyes over each letter inked on the front and following them with a fingertip. She flipped the envelope, stared at the gold star, felt the thickness of the contents between her fingers. Pushing her glasses back up her nose, she sighed. The star stared back at her, but before it could get a good look she began picking at it slowly, trying to lift up the sticker without damaging it. She succeeded, mostly, and pushed the flap of the envelope up to reveal pale pink pages folded inside.
She slid them out carefully, leaving behind the envelope’s other contents. For now.
After delicately unfolding the papers as if one wrong move would cause an explosion, Quinn flipped her thumb over where the pages gathered in the upper right corner, counting each page as it flitted by. Ten.
She set the pages in her lap and attempted to smooth out the creases a bit, buying herself a little more time. The first year a letter came—three pages long—she wondered why it wasn’t sent in a regular letter envelope. She'd thought a letter folded in thirds with only two creases marring its pages would make more sense. She quickly figured out, however, that the somewhat odd folding choice—in half one way, then again the other—was made so that the envelope’s other contents, what she’d left tucked safely away for now, remained untarnished. Complete. Worthy, maybe.
Swallowing hard, Quinn read.
Dear Quinn,
I hope this letter finds you well.
According to Sam, you are almost done with your PhD and are ABD (an acronym I had to Google when he said it). I am so proud of you, Quinn. So, so proud.
Quinn paused. Sam never mentioned talking to her recently. She wondered when they had talked to each other. Was it in person? By phone? Via email? Did they talk often? She knew Sam had been the one to pass along her new address after she had first moved from New Haven a while back. A couple of weeks before she was due to receive the envelope that year, she’d suddenly realized the potentially disastrous consequences of moving and panicked. She sent Sam a frantic text to cancel their dinner plans while offering no explanation, paced back and forth in her small apartment, and threw a book against the wall (she'd apologized to its smashed pages profusely and immediately ordered another copy on Amazon just to assuage her guilt). Sam showed up unannounced an hour later with a pizza in tow (bacon and jalapeño). He let himself in, flung the box down on the coffee table, crouched in front of Quinn's despondent form on the couch, looked her straight in her puffy, bloodshot eyes, and said, “Don’t worry, Q. I took care of it a while ago.” Then he’d turned—still on the floor wedged between the couch and the coffee table—and reached around awkwardly for a slice, mumbling around a Sam-sized mouthful, “I'm gonna eat this all if you don’t stop me.”
The envelope had arrived a couple weeks later, four or five days after her birthday, as always. She'd read through the seven pages repeatedly through the night until she fell asleep. When she woke up in the afternoon she’d called up Sam and told him to meet her at his favorite arcade bar in Brooklyn in two hours. They didn’t talk about it, but it was her way of saying thank you, and he grinned and kissed the top of her head and ran off to play Mortal Combat while she watched him happily from a corner booth nursing a beer and trying not to eat all their cheese fries.
She would have to call Sam to ask about the PhD thing. Maybe. Probably not.
Quinn looked back down.
According to Sam, you are almost done with your PhD and are ABD (an acronym I had to Google when he said it). I am so proud of you, Quinn. So, so proud. I know you have people in your life who are proud of you that matter, but I thought you should know regardless.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. People in your life who are proud of you that matter? The throwaway declaration, written like a fact, was Quinn's doing. She knew it. She did this to the person that probably mattered second most. She kept reading.
This year, the theme was Harry Potter.
Quinn gasped.
This year, the theme was Harry Potter. It’s obvious, Quinn, that she loved—still loves—what you got her last year. I arrived early, of course, and she showed me her room. It was mostly the same as what I described to you last year, with one exception. All seven books are staked neatly, one on top of the other, on the shelf above her bed. Don't worry; I told her the books could fall on and concuss her. She laughed at me, so I mentioned the dangers to Shelby later. Hopefully she listens.
But the books are there, Quinn, almost like a trophy. It reminded me of my Tony on my fireplace mantle. She had the reading light angled toward the books. To illuminate her prized possession like a spotlight. You gave her that, Quinn. And your card, like all the others before it, is pinned to the corkboard on her desk by the window.
The party was at the house, as you've probably gathered. Each room was decorated to mimic something from the books. The dining room was set up like the Great Hall, just loaded with trays and trays of ridiculous, unhealthy treats. (None were vegan.)
Quinn snorted, then frowned. Seriously? Shelby had gone out of her way to load up a table full of treats but couldn’t manage to make or buy one thing her own flesh and blood could eat?
The living room was like a classroom, I suppose. There was a potions table set up in the middle where they made miniature lava lamps. I’m not sure what lava lamps have to do with Harry Potter, but I made one anyway, because it was better than talking to all the moms. Plus, it’s where I got all the “hot goss”, as they say.
Who says that?
Beth’s best friend is still Emily. They both sorted themselves into Gryffindor and wore red t-shirts. All the kids wore t-shirts in accordance with their houses. Well, the houses they wanted to be sorted into. There was a lot of red. That one kid, Bryan—The little miscreant I told you about who shoved his hand in the cake before we sang Happy Birthday last year?—he wore green. Alarmingly self-aware.
Quinn hated Bryan. Little twerp. Last year with the cake and the year before that there was the whole biting incident. Slytherin was right; the kid was a menace. She flipped the page over, wishing briefly that the words were written smaller so more would fit on the page.
Anyway, Beth sorted herself into Gryffindor. I assume this is because she is taken with Harry. Or Ron or Hermione—the gang, so to speak. You know, the general sparkling allure of Gryffindor and pre-war exaltation of blind bravery found in the first few books. She has only read through Prisoner of Azkaban so far. She seemed a bit embarrassed at this, but I assured her she is reading at an excellent pace for a barely ten year old who also does several extracurricular activities beyond her regular schooling. She has an ambitious plan to read the remaining four over the summer, deciding to forgo ballet camp (I'm sure Shelby is thrilled!) and focus her time on the wizarding world. For this reason, among others, I think she is better suited for the same house as her mother. Even though most people would naively sort you into Slytherin—and maybe they'd be right in some sense, back then, but we both know that between the two of us I'm the Slytherin here. The good kind, of course.—you’ve always been a Ravenclaw to me, Quinn, and Beth is too. She is clever like you. So, so smart, Quinn. Inquisitive. She is constantly learning, questioning, listening. She makes this face, just like you do, while she listens. We were talking about house elves—she brought it up as we were making the lava lamps—and I was explaining how many feel their portrayal as happily enslaved is incredibly problematic. Beth just watched me, taking it all in. Completely still, almost like a statue. You do that. Used to, at least. She just watched me, Quinn. Her eyes just bore right into you, and while the rest of her face is a little more like Noah's, her eyes are all yours. The intensity of them. The color. The way they sometimes say more than what she vocalizes. She is a Ravenclaw, just like you, Quinn. Curious and attentive and undeniable.
Quinn let out a breath, sniffed wetly through her nose.
But she is also so warm, Quinn. So true and so free. I suppose that can be said of most kids, but it’s part of her like your strength is a part of you. She’s a little bit Hufflepuff where you’re a little bit Gryffindor. She is fiercely kind where you’re fiercely stubborn, level-headed where you’re sometimes brash, shiny where you’re stoic. Beth is you, if you could’ve been you from the start. You are wonderful, Quinn, and you always have been. Always will be. Beth is all of your wonderfulness set free.
She made sure everyone was happy with their lava lamp. She made sure everyone got way too many of those ungodly treats from the makeshift Great Hall. She hugged each kid when they arrived (even Bryan the demon Slytherin spawn). And she ran upstairs to grab a yellow shirt for a new girl, Isabela, when she showed up in purple and mumbled that she didn’t know anything about Harry Potter. Beth came down huffing and puffing and grinning like a fool in ten seconds flat, handed over the shirt, and said, “You're a Hufflepuff, Isabela. You’re nice to everyone and never share secrets and even though you don’t say much, what you do say is important.” Quinn, I almost cried.
Beth is all of your wonderfulness set free.
Quinn was fully crying now. She pushed the pages father down her legs so her tears wouldn’t ruin them. She stared at the sentence, deliberately repeated and set off on its own line. She read it over three or four or fifteen more times before finally continuing.
Outside, Shelby had set up a quidditch pitch. Clearly, just like with the lava lamp "potions class"—Did I mention that she had a cardboard cutout of Maggie Smith in the living room? McGonagall! Supervising a potions class! I didn’t have the mind to point out this horrendous error, mostly due to the fact Beth hadn't said anything to Shelby. Loyal and protective, Quinn.—she had no idea what this meant. She essentially set up a soccer field, one goal on either end of the backyard, and handed all the kids little brooms and threw out a single, red dodgeball. She must've done some research, though, because she tied a little jingle bell to Ralph's collar and called him the "Golden Twitch", setting him free in the middle of the yard and proclaiming, "The team that catches the Golden Twitch will get two scoops of ice cream with their cake!" Beth shook her head at the misnomer, as did a couple other kids, but they all chased Ralph. I don't even think they divided into teams, Quinn, but it was amusing nonetheless. It took a surprisingly long time for Ralph to be caught. Everyone got two scoops of ice cream with their cake.
Quinn laughed. Shelby was an idiot, but she tried. And Beth was all of her wonderfulness set free, so she must be doing a good job. Even if she wasn't doing one with her biological daughter.
Opening presents was an event. With every new gift, Beth waved her wand—more like a fairy wand than anything; pink and plastic and covered in sparkles—and said ACCIO [insert description here]. ACCIO BLUE BAG WITH PURPLE POLKA DOTS!, for example. I could not stop laughing, Quinn. She had fifteen or so presents and never waned in enthusiasm. She'd call out for a present, and the kid-giver would scramble out of their seat, race over to grab it off the kitchen island, and speed back as fast as possible to where Beth was sitting. It truly was delightful.
Noah got her a pink basketball. Beth seemed amused, I think. Shelby rolled her eyes. She's still stuck on the "My daughter is into the arts, not sports!" thing. Which I never really understood, because: 1) dancers are athletes and she's tried to force ballet on her for years now, and 2) cross-training is an essential part of every performer's regimen. (You know this; your cheerleading enhanced your dancing. It was essential to your recovery from the accident, too, I believe. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned it. Sorry again.)
Let me tell you a little secret, Quinn: Your daughter is going to be a soccer star. That dodge ball from the "quidditch game"? Once Ralph had been caught, most of the kids sprawled out on the grass for a bit, lazily having swordfights with their brooms in the air while recharging their batteries. But Beth? Beth was up, her broom long forgotten, kicking the ball back and forth with newly dubbed Hufflepuff, Isabela. I don't know anything about soccer, obviously, but every time the ball came at Beth she popped it up with the toe of her foot into the hair, bounced it off the top of her knee, and sent it right back with such ease. I think she gets that grace from you. You were always so graceful as a performer. (A little clumsy otherwise. How does that work?)
Your daughter is going to be a soccer star, Quinn.
A soccer star. Her laughter turned quickly back to crying, ugly and loud and full of snot.
She loved your gift, of course. At first she was confused, because she opened the cover expecting it was a book only to find blank pages. She stared for a second, looked at Shelby, then at me. I told her it was a journal. That you used to write all the time at her age. I don't think that was a lie; I remember you reading or writing in the back of every other glee practice. I thought it was annoying at the time, but look where you are now. Soon to be Dr. Fabray. The reading and writing had a purpose all along, didn't it? (What did you write about, anyway?)
I'm getting off track, my apologies. I told Beth you used to write all the time at her age, and while we were in high school together, and that you write now, too. I hope that's alright. She perked right up, Quinn. Remember when you gave me that Metro North pass? You looked so delighted. And determined. Beth looked just like that, Quinn. She thumbed through the pages like she could count them all in one go, ran her fingers over the lines, smoothed her hand over her initials stamped in the cover. She loves it, Quinn. I know you were probably nervous to get her that green, but it's still her favorite color. I checked after everyone left, just in case. She would've loved it in any color, though; it's a gift from her mother.
Quinn set the page down on her left thigh, revealing the tenth and last page on her right. She didn't want it to end.
Beth is beautiful, Quinn. She's happy and vibrant and incredibly intelligent. She feels with her whole heart and smiles with her whole face. She thinks with her whole brain, which sounds dumber on paper than it did in my head, but I mean to say that she is so thoughtful. Not impulsive, at least not with what she says to people or how she treats them. She takes her time and she soaks up every minute. She's careful and loving and everything good. All of your wonderfulness set free.
But just like her mother, she can get a bit pitchy when she sings. I told Shelby to work on it.
I hope you are well, Quinn. I really do. I hope you read this letter and know that Beth loves you. I hope you know that, despite Shelby's hesitance on the matter, Beth feels connected to you. She seeks that connection with every page of Harry Potter she reads, knowing that you read those same pages. She makes little notes in the margins, too, right next to yours. And she will write in her journal like she's writing to you. For you. Both.
You are a wonderful mother, Quinn. I am so proud of you for that and for everything else. For all of it.
Until next year,
Rachel Berry
P.S. If you should want to be in touch sooner, you know where to find me.
Quinn stacked up the pages, making sure they were in the right order three times. Instead of folding them back up, she placed them on the coffee table. She looked back down at her lap. Again, she found herself staring at the gold star. The two points that floated off the flap were fluttering slightly in the air conditioner's breeze. She flicked at them.
Picking up the envelope quickly, Quinn lifted the flap to open it further. She retrieved the remaining contents and held it to her chest. God, she could be so dramatic. Pathetic. Inhaling a deep breath, Quinn unwrapped a layer of neatly taped brown paper to reveal two thin pieces of cardboard sandwiched together. She lifted the top one off. In big, neat writing:
Beth Corcoran
10th Birthday Party
Future Soccer Star
Quinn smiled and flipped the photo over. Beth is taller now. Evidently so. A little awkward with big feet and hands that the rest of her body hasn’t yet caught up to. Beautiful. She is beaming at the camera, red dodge ball tucked under her arm and hip jutted out with a bit of attitude. Her hair is wild in the wind, pulled up in a ponytail, dirty blonde. It seems to be darkening with age, like Quinn's did, but more so. She can make out Gryffindor written, rather neatly for a ten year old, on the upper left chest of her red t-shirt, a little lion drawn beneath. In the background, Ralph is running towards her, his shaggy hair making him a fuzzy brown blur with a pink tongue sticking out.
Beth was happy.
Quinn got up, picking up the letter from the coffee table and carried her treasures back to her room. She went to her dresser first, grabbing the closest of two simple wood frames that rested atop it. She flipped it over, released the back, and carefully tipped out the contents. It was a fairly thick stack, and on top was the photo from last year. Beth was smaller, somehow much younger looking at nine, holding Ralph up next to her face. The theme that year had been tie dye, so she was wearing a green and blue tie dye shirt under her overall shorts. In the background, newly dyed shirts hung on a clothes line. There was frosting, somehow, on her forehead. Quinn flipped it over. Beth Corcoran. 9th Birthday Party. Loves green and Ralph. The dog had been a Christmas present that year, Rachel had revealed in the letter, saying he was small and loud and unstoppable. Quinn had laughed at that. Sounded familiar.
She flipped the photo back over and laid the stack down on the dresser. Carefully, she tore off some of the brown paper that had enclosed this year's photo, using it as a barrier between it and birthday number nine. She had done this every year for eight years now, since she was a sophomore at Yale and an envelope had showed up at her dorm room with Rachel Berry's handwriting across the front. She had no idea what to expect, but a three page letter and a photo of Beth was not at all something she could have imagined. She didn't even know Rachel was in contact with Shelby, let alone invited to Beth's birthday party. She was angry—jealous—at first. But then she was immensely grateful. Of course, she never said anything. She couldn't. Where would she start?
Placing the stack back in the frame, she closed up the back and locked it in. It was getting to be a tight squeeze. She replaced the frame to its original spot, right next to a picture of her and Beth in the hospital. Quinn looked like a kid. Was a kid.
She walked to the closet now, pulling down a box from the top shelf and collapsing on her bed. As she did every year, she would read through all the letters in chronological order, comparing things she'd learned over the years. Taking it all in. Time really flies, doesn't it?
Quinn wondered how long Rachel would keep this up. She wondered why she did this in the first place. She wondered how long she could be ignored before she stopped sending letters and snapping photos. She wondered if Shelby knew about this. She wondered if Rachel always wrote one page per year Beth was alive on purpose, or if it was a coincidence. She knew it was intentional, actually. She wondered if there was a limit, though. Would she stop matching page count to birthday years because she'd run out of things to say? Would she write her forty pages on Beth's fortieth birthday? Would Beth even be in Rachel's life then?
Quinn wondered a lot, and when she finished reading through all the letters again for the third time, she hopped out of bed and made her way back to the living room. The envelope still sat on the coffee table, gold star catching the light from the tabletop lamp. She snatched it up as she walked by, heading swiftly to her desk under the corner window. Plopping down, she grabbed a notebook from the stack in the corner—a new one, not yet written in—and started writing. She kept writing and writing and writing until she had ten pages. She ended the letter abruptly, not wanting to exceed her self-imposed limit. She would match Rachel, but refused to exceed her. She tore out the pages and folded the stack into thirds. As they should be. She sealed them in an envelope. She wrote RACHEL BERRY in her uneven scrawl across the middle and copied down the return address beneath it. In the upper left corner, in lieu of a return address, she wrote Q.
She didn't have stickers or anything to adorn the envelope, so she just licked the seal to activate the adhesive and slapped on a forever stamp.
She wasn't thinking. It was almost two in the morning now, and Quinn was running down eight flights of stairs to get to the mailroom off the building's entry hall. The elevator was loud and creaky and she didn't want to wake up anyone just about as much as she wanted to delay what she was about to do.
When she finally stood in front of the rows and rows of little metal compartments, all numbered to match the units and each having its own lock, she realized she'd have to walk up eight flights of stairs now, too. She wished she could use her personal mailbox compartment to send outgoing mail. That way, if she slipped it through the slot and immediately regretted it, she could simply unlock it and pull it out like nothing happened. Throw it away. But of course her building used a shared, larger compartment for outgoing mail. Only the mailman had the key, so once she slipped that letter in, it would be gone.
Quinn stood for a long time. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the outgoing mail slot and her compartment several rows down. Sam had put a sticker of the aliens from Toy Story on it when he'd helped her move in. He'd rushed her over, pointed eagerly, and in an excited little alien voice said, "Ooooooo." He drove her absolutely nuts. She loved him a lot.
She slipped the letter in the slot.
Oh no. The metaphorical red flag was up. There was no going back now. The letter would be sent.
She sprinted back up the entrance hall to the stairs and made her way as fast as she could into her apartment. She immediately found her phone and tapped out a text to Sam: emergency-ish. call me. but not before noon
Quinn flipped off all the lights, went back to her room, gathered up all the letters, and put the box back on the shelf in the closet. She took another look at Future Soccer Star Beth and crawled into bed.
She hoped she wrote Rachel's address wrong. Or maybe she'd think it was fan mail and trash it. That'd work too.
She rolled over into her pillow and groaned. She thought about lava lamps and jingle bells and red dodge balls and gold star stickers and, finally, Quinn fell asleep.