Simple Parts (from fanfiction.net)

Chapter Four- I think I love you

Simple Parts

Chapter Four- I Think I Love You

I think I love you.
So what am I so afraid of?
I'm afraid that I'm not sure of
A love there is no cure for.

QFRB

Rachel didn't tarry long in Carmen's room. It felt awkward and very much like she was invading someone's space. Once out in the hallway though, she took pause. The upper floor of the house was quiet. Alex's door down the hall had been closed so she was faced with no opportunity for safe further exploration. She didn't want to accidently walk in on the two Quinn's during their discussion. After deciding that downstairs would be a safer option she started down the hall in the direction of the stairs, and in doing so, passed a picture frame.

She paused and debated if she should look at the photo it contained or not. She determined it couldn't really hurt anything and turned her whole body so that she was facing the wall, her eyes though, focused on the wall under the black frame. Clenching her fists and giving her nails a good dig into her palms, she psyched herself for what she was about to see. Then she looked up.

The picture frame was digital and apparently set to shuffle through the pictures on it at intervals because as soon as she looked up the image changed. She didn't have time to absorb anything about the previous picture, but the current one was a formal family portrait. Older Quinn and Rachel, somewhere in their mid-twenties she guessed, sat in front of a blue backdrop with a rather unhappy looking baby boy in a red sweater between them. They were both wearing matching sweaters and smiles. The picture changed again and she was looking at the same set up, but instead of looking at the camera, both of the women in the picture had their eyes on the little boy. The smile on Quinn's face made Rachel's heart stop.

The pictures continued to change, the passage of time evident in the aging of the little boy and the addition of other children and changing sweater colors. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, but it wasn't until her eyesight became too blurred with tears that she looked away.

She didn't know what to feel. It shouldn't be so easy to fall into such deep emotion so suddenly, to understand things about herself out of the blue, to understand things about another person out of the blue. It was like seeing this future had put every action Quinn had ever done into startling perspective. She didn't want to assume though. Assuming was dangerous. There were so many possibilities and she could easily be wrong.

For the first time since she entered the future, Rachel thought about Finn. She wondered where he was, if he was scared too, if he had found himself, if he was married with kids. If he was in love with some other woman. If he had forgotten to think of her at all too. She felt guilty, but only briefly. It wasn't like he could get mad at her, she reasoned. She hadn't done anything wrong and neither had Quinn. All of this was just a possibility. The world changed with every decision made.

Giving one last lingering look at the photo currently on display (there were four children in the photo and all their sweaters were green) Rachel decided to just go with the flow until she could formulate some kind of plan. She would need a better grip on this future first.

First she needed more information.

She didn't bother to explore, not wanting to get sucked into another emotional hurricane. Instead she blindly followed the sounds of humming and clanking pans and the closing of drawers. It was in this way that she found the other Rachel in the kitchen, standing at the stove with a skillet in each hand.

"What's for dinner?" she asked, stepping more fully into the room.

Older Rachel turned to offer her a smile. It was surreal to see her own face looking back at her from somewhere other than a mirror. "Seitan Fajitas, with a side of real bacon for the Quinns." Young Rachel could feel her expression morph from delighted interest to horror in the few short seconds it took for that sentence to come into being. "Don't look at me like that. When my lady is upset or stressed she gets bacon, and I personally can't fathom a situation more stressful than the one we're all in now."