Sunday Mornings
It's never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
May 17th
When James woke up in the dark and rolled over, his arm stretched out to the right but when his hand dragged across the blankets instead of the warm body he was so used to he opened his eyes and reached over to turn the light next to the bed on. Just as he thought the spot next to him was empty, and cold, so Quinn had gotten up a while before. He stayed quiet, and tried to listen for her to see if maybe she was in the bathroom and then he leaned over her side of the bed to look at the baby monitor screen and upon finding Peyton asleep in her crib he got up out of bed.
He shuffled down the hall, peeking into Peyton's room to see if maybe Quinn was in there just watching her sleep like sometimes she did, but the room was empty aside from the sleeping baby in the crib. So he crept down the hall, down the stairs and he stuck his head in her studio space, but nothing. He was beginning to get concerned and his concern was heightened when he heard a combination of throwing up and dry heaving coming from the bathroom off of the kitchen.
He approached the door to find Nixon laying on the floor beside it, so he stepped over the dog and knocked on the door, raising his voice just a little so that it drafted through the door, "Quinn?"
A second later she spoke, her voice low, "I'm fine, go back to bed."
James glanced down at Nixon, who was looking up at him, and he took the chance of her being angry with him and he put his hand on the door knob and turned it. The first thing he saw was Quinn, forearms resting against the bottom of the toilet bowl, her forehead against her skin. The second thing he saw was the blood; little droplets on the floor by his feet, there was some smeared on the sink bowl, and a lot inside the toilet bowl.
He was panicking, it was evident by the way his voice raised and got a little higher than usual when he asked her, "What's going on?"
She didn't turn to him, she kept her face toward the floor, hidden behind her arm, and told him, "I told you to go back to bed."
"And I asked you what was going on." James told her firmly. He was aware that he stepped in some of the blood on the floor as he approached her, but he didn't really care, he sat down next to her and forcefully pulled her crossed arms apart. He wondered how long she had been down here, long enough for her hands to be covered in drying blood, and a patch on the inside of her bicep as if she tried to hold her nausea in that way, which would have explained the three droplets of blood that had run down the front of her throat and disappeared into the neckline of her dark t-shirt.
She croaked out, "I'm fine."
When she squeezed her eyes shut and then leaned over and threw up even more red James told her, "Bullshit you're fine."
She let out a sigh and watched him as he got up and grabbed a face cloth from the shelf above the toilet. He soaked it in warm water in the sink, wiping up the mess there first. Quinn watched as he rinsed the cloth out and soaked it again before he sat back down beside her and grabbed her hands and she kept her eyes on his own hands, watching as they meticulously scrubbed at her hands, fingers and wrists until they were clean. He moved to the spot on the inside of her arm, and then he wiped up and down on her throat and chin, and when he was cleaning the rag again in the sink Quinn spoke softly, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" James asked her, wringing the cloth out and reaching over her to hang it on the shower rod to dry.
He held his hands out for her, and when she grabbed them he lifted her to her feet slowly and James reached back to flick the light off as they left the bathroom together. James watched as she sat down on the couch, Nixon following her and dropping onto the floor at her feet, so as Quinn leaned down to pet him James took a spot next to her and he waited patiently as he could for her to say something.
Eventually she pulled her hand away from Nixon's head, and she clasped her fingers together, laying her hands in her lap as she stared down at them. James must have surprised her because when he reached over and took her hands in his she jumped slightly, and he asked her, "What's going on Quinn?"
She looked up at him with soft, sad eyes and asked him, "Would you believe me if I said nothing?"
"Not a damn chance." James told her firmly, and when her brow raised he explained, "You've been weird for weeks. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want you to... get mad at me or something. I thought maybe you were just still not feeling well, or that you know... things changed once we got Peyton... but I've noticed how weird you've been acting. The way you've been so nauseous all the time, and how you're sleeping so much, the fact that you basically never have energy to do anything lately. Quinn... what's happening?"
She sighed gently, and then James felt as if the earth beneath him was breaking open and getting ready to swallow him whole when she looked over at him and told him, point blank with no sugar coating, "The cancer's back."
"What?" He was sure his voice was barely above a whisper, at least that's how it felt. Like he couldn't get words out, like his voice just wasn't working.
He watched her bite down on her lip for a moment, and then she told him, "When that flu never seemed to go away I made a doctors appointment. They did blood work, and a CT and then I got a call a week later to come in and I think I knew it before even hearing it."
"But... what... I mean this is... what?" He had no idea what he was even saying. He wasn't even sure if he was comprehending what she was saying. James was sure he would wake up in the morning and not have a clue in hell what they had talked about, he was sure he would wake up in the morning and this would have all just been a very real bad dream. One could only hope. He looked over at Quinn, who was watching him with teary eyes, and he couldn't help but ask her, "How long have you known?"
He knew it by the way her eyes lowered away from his, he didn't need to hear her tell him, "A while."
"How long?" He was angry, they both knew it.
She sighed, tucked a stray piece of her brown hair behind her ears and told him honestly, "Since March."
"Are you fucking kidding me right now? You've known for three months Quinn?" James pulled his hands from hers and he shoved them through his lengthily brown locks, pushing them from his face.
"At first I just... didn't know how to tell you... I didn't know how to deal with it myself, and I felt guilty because it was me who wanted the baby and then three months later this happens." Her voice was soft as she spoke, and James was sure if he was looking at her she would be crying, he could tell by the way her voice fluctuated. She surprised him when she told him, "And then you guys made playoffs and I didn't-I don't want to be a distraction for you."
His eyes were dark and wild, and his hair was sticking up in spots from where he ran his hands through them as he got up from the couch and exclaimed, "A distraction? Quinn, fuck the playoffs. This is our life. I'm done, seasons over."
Quinn reached out and grabbed his hand and told him, "Sit down, and listen to me, please."
He did as she asked, he sat down and he didn't even pull his hand from hers. He simply looked over at her and told her, "I don't understand how you could keep this from me."
"I know. I should have told you."
"You're damn right you should have." He muttered in annoyance.
"But please, I'm asking you to just try to see it from my side. James, I know how hard you've been working for this. Your entire life has been about winning the cup and you guys have a real shot at it... The last thing I can handle right now, on top of this, is doing anything to even possibly ruin that for you. So I made a judgement call."
"So... what are we looking at? Like, is there stuff we can do? Treatment, or surgeries?" James asked her curiously.
Quinn looked at him with a soft expression and she was completely honest with him when she told him, "They think chemo could give me a few more months but I'm not doing it."
"What do you mean you're not doing it?" James asked her, his voice raised again.
"I don't want to spend what time I have left in a hospital, in pain, where I'm not even gonna be present for most of it. I want to be here, with you and Peyton." Quinn spoke so softly that James barely heard her, but he had heard her and he was angry again.
"But that's extra time for us Quinn. How can you not want that? How can you not want a few extra months with us?" He wasn't angry at her, he was angry with the situation and he was angry that he didn't understand where she was coming from.
She sighed and told him, "I know that's how you see it... but James do you not remember what chemo was like the first time?"
Of course he remembered.
Still, she reminded him, "I had no energy, I was sick all of the time, everything hurt... what kind of life is that?"
"The kind that gives me and Peyton more time with you." James told her with a flat, hard voice.
Her eyes filled with tears and James watched them fall down her cheeks as she told him, "I know you're angry, I get that... and if doing treatment meant that those last few months wouldn't be filled with what I know they will be I'd do it for you in a heartbeat, but this isn't a perfect world, that's not how it works. Those extra months are gonna awful and you know it. Please, please don't ask me to do that."
"I'm not okay with this." He told her honestly.
"I know you're not. I'm not asking you to be okay with it, I'm just asking you to respect what I want." It felt as if she was trying to remind him that he wasn't the one going through this, which might have been true in the technical sense but at the same time he was going through it.
So he let out a sigh, ran his fingers through his hair and he asked her, "When you talked to the doctor... did they say... did they-"
Quinn knew what he was trying to ask and she knew that he could say it out loud yet so she simply answered for him, "Six to eight months if we're lucky."
"Were you ever gonna tell me? If this hadn't happened tonight were you gonna tell me at all?" James asked her, his voice was a mixture of anger and sadness and it was something Quinn hadn't truly ever heard before.
"Of course I was." She told him, and when he shot her a hard look she sighed and admitted, "After the playoffs."
"Unbelievable." He pulled his hands from her and got up from the couch.
He was aware of her following him to the door, and as he shoved his feet into runners she asked him, "Where are you going?"
"Out. Away. I can't be here right now." When she didn't answer he turned to her and told her honestly, "I am so fucking angry with you right now Quinn that I'm leaving before I say something I don't really mean, something I can't take back."
"James..." She paused as he watched her, and when his hands reached for his set of keys on the hook by the door she told him, "Promise me you're not gonna go ask for time off. Promise me you're not about to ditch your teammates when they need you the most."
"You need me the most." James told her with a raised voice.
"James. Promise me."
"Fine. I promise." He slammed the door behind him, aware that he probably woke Peyton up but as he got into his car and flew out of the driveway he didn't really care.
Quinn sighed when Peyton let out a wail from upstairs, and so she climbed the stairs slowly and headed into the nursery. She leaned over the crib railing and picked Peyton up, holding her on her hip as she rubbed her back and moved back and forth slowly in a swaying motion. She pressed a soft kiss to Peyton's head and told her gently, "You're okay. Go back to sleep baby, you're okay."
A minute or two more of the shushing and back rubbing and Peyton drifted back to sleep, so Quinn put her back in the crib and then she took a seat in the plush armchair across the room. She glanced down at her watch, which was displaying five twenty three in the morning and she sighed, leaning her head back against the chair.
She knew he wouldn't have the greatest reaction, but that hadn't been what she had been expecting. She couldn't blame him, he had every right to be angry with her and maybe she was naive or just hopeful but she wanted him not to be. She wanted him to overlook the fact that she had been lying to him about something so major for so long but she knew he wouldn't.
She had intentionally lied to him, sure, and every single day that went by where she didn't tell him her guilt got worse and worse but Quinn still stood by her choice. She knew she should have told him when she found out, but at that time she didn't know how to, and then the longer and longer she didn't tell him the more and more she made excuses and then eventually it had been weeks and the first round of the playoffs had gone by, as well as the second and when she realized just how great of a chance they had she couldn't do anything to jeopardize it.
Part of her wondered if maybe that was just another excuse. Like she used their season, and the playoffs and the journey to the cup as a reason to not tell James because she wasn't ready to. Truthfully Quinn hadn't come to terms with it herself yet, despite having so long to have done so. She had gone through surprise, sadness, a little bit of anger but it still felt like she had so many more unresolved feelings about it.
Then it hit her.
She didn't even know how she felt about it and she had months to deal with it, how in the world could she have expected James to react like she wanted him to, especially after finding out the way that he had?
So she got up from the chair and went into their bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the bed and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. She sent James a text.
I'm so sorry, please come home so we can talk.
When she didn't receive an answer from him after fifteen minutes Quinn knew she never would. She set her phone back on the nightstand and wandered downstairs. Nixon followed her into the kitchen where she made a cup of tea, and sat at the table to drink it. She reached down and pet Nixon's head while she drank, and every time the little hand on the big clock on the wall across from her moved to a new number Quinn let out a sigh.
She didn't blame him for being angry, or for taking off. In fact, a break was probably exactly what they both needed, but she was beginning to worry when he didn't walk through the door every time a new hour started.
And then, at nine thirty she heard a vehicle pull into the driveway, and the front door opened and closed and as Quinn came around the corner and their eyes met they both froze. Eventually James slipped out of his shoes and approached her, and Quinn was surprised when he wrapped his arms around her tightly. She hugged him back, much more gentle than he was holding her, and she felt him press a small, gentle kiss to her jawline before they pulled apart.
He told her softly, his voice laced with exhaustion, "I'm sorry for leaving and for... the way things happened."
"Don't apologize because you have nothing to apologize for. I'm sorry, I'm the one who has something to apologize for." Quinn told him softly, and she followed him to the couch where they both sat down together much like they had hours before. Quinn reached out and grabbed James' hands and she told him, "You're right, I should have told you and I know that... but the truth is I still don't know how to deal with it myself and I let that come before you and I and I'm so sorry."
James shook his head, "I wish you had told me before, but Quinn... it's okay. I get it, and I'll work on understanding it as long as you promise me that from now on it's one hundred percent honesty."
"I promise." She told him, and then she added, "You have to promise me though, that you're not gonna quit."
"Quinn..."
"No. I know you, I know how much you're gonna struggle with this and I know the only thing that's gonna keep you together is going out there with your team. And frankly, I need you to do it, because I need that too." She told him softly, and James flipped their hands around so that his large ones were wrapped around the outsides of her much smaller ones.
He squeezed her hands in his and told her, "I won't quit."
"Thank you."
She scooted closer to him, and she was surprised when he leaned forward and rested his forehead against her shoulder. Quinn rubbed his back as he tried and failed to not cry, and that first uneven breath he sucked in made her eyes well up with tears as well. She leaned over and kissed the side of his head and James told her, his voice shaking and his pitch breaking as he tried to hold his emotions down, "I'll deal with it."
"Hmm?" She asked softly.
He pulled away from her and looked her right in the eyes and he told her, "I don't like it, I wish you didn't want this, but I'm gonna keep my mouth shut and I'm gonna respect your wishes. I'm gonna keep playing, I'm not gonna ask you to try treatment and I'm gonna win you that Stanley Cup... on one condition."
"What's that?" She asked him.
James smiled gently, the first real smile she had seen from him since he found her in the bathroom, and Quinn smiled back at him when he told her, "You damn well better be there for it."
"I promise, nothing could keep me from being there. Not even death." She said, smiling, and James let out a strangled laugh that sounded more like a cry than a real laugh.
His voice was soft as he asked her, "You know, as much as I hate this... and as much as I don't want this to be so morbid but... have I ever told you how glad I am that I met you? That I managed to get you to fall in love with me? That I somehow went from arrogant, ice skating pig to someone you wanted to spend your life with, to have a family with?"
"Even now, when I talked you into this whole baby thing and now I'm leaving you to do it on your own?" Quinn asked him curiously. That was one of, if not the hardest, struggle she had been having since she left the doctors office in March.
"You didn't have to talk me into a baby Quinn, I know you think you did and I promise you that this isn't me trying to make you feel better. You didn't have to talk me into it, I was already in it one hundred and ten percent. I know it took us a while to get here, but I always wanted a family with you, I just needed to grow up a little first." James told her honestly, and he reached out and wiped her tears for her. It was then that he told her, "I think, maybe, deep down, I wanted her more than you did."
"I think you're probably right."
When James woke up in the dark and rolled over, his arm stretched out to the right but when his hand dragged across the blankets instead of the warm body he was so used to he opened his eyes and reached over to turn the light next to the bed on. Just as he thought the spot next to him was empty, and cold, so Quinn had gotten up a while before. He stayed quiet, and tried to listen for her to see if maybe she was in the bathroom and then he leaned over her side of the bed to look at the baby monitor screen and upon finding Peyton asleep in her crib he got up out of bed.
He shuffled down the hall, peeking into Peyton's room to see if maybe Quinn was in there just watching her sleep like sometimes she did, but the room was empty aside from the sleeping baby in the crib. So he crept down the hall, down the stairs and he stuck his head in her studio space, but nothing. He was beginning to get concerned and his concern was heightened when he heard a combination of throwing up and dry heaving coming from the bathroom off of the kitchen.
He approached the door to find Nixon laying on the floor beside it, so he stepped over the dog and knocked on the door, raising his voice just a little so that it drafted through the door, "Quinn?"
A second later she spoke, her voice low, "I'm fine, go back to bed."
James glanced down at Nixon, who was looking up at him, and he took the chance of her being angry with him and he put his hand on the door knob and turned it. The first thing he saw was Quinn, forearms resting against the bottom of the toilet bowl, her forehead against her skin. The second thing he saw was the blood; little droplets on the floor by his feet, there was some smeared on the sink bowl, and a lot inside the toilet bowl.
He was panicking, it was evident by the way his voice raised and got a little higher than usual when he asked her, "What's going on?"
She didn't turn to him, she kept her face toward the floor, hidden behind her arm, and told him, "I told you to go back to bed."
"And I asked you what was going on." James told her firmly. He was aware that he stepped in some of the blood on the floor as he approached her, but he didn't really care, he sat down next to her and forcefully pulled her crossed arms apart. He wondered how long she had been down here, long enough for her hands to be covered in drying blood, and a patch on the inside of her bicep as if she tried to hold her nausea in that way, which would have explained the three droplets of blood that had run down the front of her throat and disappeared into the neckline of her dark t-shirt.
She croaked out, "I'm fine."
When she squeezed her eyes shut and then leaned over and threw up even more red James told her, "Bullshit you're fine."
She let out a sigh and watched him as he got up and grabbed a face cloth from the shelf above the toilet. He soaked it in warm water in the sink, wiping up the mess there first. Quinn watched as he rinsed the cloth out and soaked it again before he sat back down beside her and grabbed her hands and she kept her eyes on his own hands, watching as they meticulously scrubbed at her hands, fingers and wrists until they were clean. He moved to the spot on the inside of her arm, and then he wiped up and down on her throat and chin, and when he was cleaning the rag again in the sink Quinn spoke softly, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" James asked her, wringing the cloth out and reaching over her to hang it on the shower rod to dry.
He held his hands out for her, and when she grabbed them he lifted her to her feet slowly and James reached back to flick the light off as they left the bathroom together. James watched as she sat down on the couch, Nixon following her and dropping onto the floor at her feet, so as Quinn leaned down to pet him James took a spot next to her and he waited patiently as he could for her to say something.
Eventually she pulled her hand away from Nixon's head, and she clasped her fingers together, laying her hands in her lap as she stared down at them. James must have surprised her because when he reached over and took her hands in his she jumped slightly, and he asked her, "What's going on Quinn?"
She looked up at him with soft, sad eyes and asked him, "Would you believe me if I said nothing?"
"Not a damn chance." James told her firmly, and when her brow raised he explained, "You've been weird for weeks. I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want you to... get mad at me or something. I thought maybe you were just still not feeling well, or that you know... things changed once we got Peyton... but I've noticed how weird you've been acting. The way you've been so nauseous all the time, and how you're sleeping so much, the fact that you basically never have energy to do anything lately. Quinn... what's happening?"
She sighed gently, and then James felt as if the earth beneath him was breaking open and getting ready to swallow him whole when she looked over at him and told him, point blank with no sugar coating, "The cancer's back."
"What?" He was sure his voice was barely above a whisper, at least that's how it felt. Like he couldn't get words out, like his voice just wasn't working.
He watched her bite down on her lip for a moment, and then she told him, "When that flu never seemed to go away I made a doctors appointment. They did blood work, and a CT and then I got a call a week later to come in and I think I knew it before even hearing it."
"But... what... I mean this is... what?" He had no idea what he was even saying. He wasn't even sure if he was comprehending what she was saying. James was sure he would wake up in the morning and not have a clue in hell what they had talked about, he was sure he would wake up in the morning and this would have all just been a very real bad dream. One could only hope. He looked over at Quinn, who was watching him with teary eyes, and he couldn't help but ask her, "How long have you known?"
He knew it by the way her eyes lowered away from his, he didn't need to hear her tell him, "A while."
"How long?" He was angry, they both knew it.
She sighed, tucked a stray piece of her brown hair behind her ears and told him honestly, "Since March."
"Are you fucking kidding me right now? You've known for three months Quinn?" James pulled his hands from hers and he shoved them through his lengthily brown locks, pushing them from his face.
"At first I just... didn't know how to tell you... I didn't know how to deal with it myself, and I felt guilty because it was me who wanted the baby and then three months later this happens." Her voice was soft as she spoke, and James was sure if he was looking at her she would be crying, he could tell by the way her voice fluctuated. She surprised him when she told him, "And then you guys made playoffs and I didn't-I don't want to be a distraction for you."
His eyes were dark and wild, and his hair was sticking up in spots from where he ran his hands through them as he got up from the couch and exclaimed, "A distraction? Quinn, fuck the playoffs. This is our life. I'm done, seasons over."
Quinn reached out and grabbed his hand and told him, "Sit down, and listen to me, please."
He did as she asked, he sat down and he didn't even pull his hand from hers. He simply looked over at her and told her, "I don't understand how you could keep this from me."
"I know. I should have told you."
"You're damn right you should have." He muttered in annoyance.
"But please, I'm asking you to just try to see it from my side. James, I know how hard you've been working for this. Your entire life has been about winning the cup and you guys have a real shot at it... The last thing I can handle right now, on top of this, is doing anything to even possibly ruin that for you. So I made a judgement call."
"So... what are we looking at? Like, is there stuff we can do? Treatment, or surgeries?" James asked her curiously.
Quinn looked at him with a soft expression and she was completely honest with him when she told him, "They think chemo could give me a few more months but I'm not doing it."
"What do you mean you're not doing it?" James asked her, his voice raised again.
"I don't want to spend what time I have left in a hospital, in pain, where I'm not even gonna be present for most of it. I want to be here, with you and Peyton." Quinn spoke so softly that James barely heard her, but he had heard her and he was angry again.
"But that's extra time for us Quinn. How can you not want that? How can you not want a few extra months with us?" He wasn't angry at her, he was angry with the situation and he was angry that he didn't understand where she was coming from.
She sighed and told him, "I know that's how you see it... but James do you not remember what chemo was like the first time?"
Of course he remembered.
Still, she reminded him, "I had no energy, I was sick all of the time, everything hurt... what kind of life is that?"
"The kind that gives me and Peyton more time with you." James told her with a flat, hard voice.
Her eyes filled with tears and James watched them fall down her cheeks as she told him, "I know you're angry, I get that... and if doing treatment meant that those last few months wouldn't be filled with what I know they will be I'd do it for you in a heartbeat, but this isn't a perfect world, that's not how it works. Those extra months are gonna awful and you know it. Please, please don't ask me to do that."
"I'm not okay with this." He told her honestly.
"I know you're not. I'm not asking you to be okay with it, I'm just asking you to respect what I want." It felt as if she was trying to remind him that he wasn't the one going through this, which might have been true in the technical sense but at the same time he was going through it.
So he let out a sigh, ran his fingers through his hair and he asked her, "When you talked to the doctor... did they say... did they-"
Quinn knew what he was trying to ask and she knew that he could say it out loud yet so she simply answered for him, "Six to eight months if we're lucky."
"Were you ever gonna tell me? If this hadn't happened tonight were you gonna tell me at all?" James asked her, his voice was a mixture of anger and sadness and it was something Quinn hadn't truly ever heard before.
"Of course I was." She told him, and when he shot her a hard look she sighed and admitted, "After the playoffs."
"Unbelievable." He pulled his hands from her and got up from the couch.
He was aware of her following him to the door, and as he shoved his feet into runners she asked him, "Where are you going?"
"Out. Away. I can't be here right now." When she didn't answer he turned to her and told her honestly, "I am so fucking angry with you right now Quinn that I'm leaving before I say something I don't really mean, something I can't take back."
"James..." She paused as he watched her, and when his hands reached for his set of keys on the hook by the door she told him, "Promise me you're not gonna go ask for time off. Promise me you're not about to ditch your teammates when they need you the most."
"You need me the most." James told her with a raised voice.
"James. Promise me."
"Fine. I promise." He slammed the door behind him, aware that he probably woke Peyton up but as he got into his car and flew out of the driveway he didn't really care.
Quinn sighed when Peyton let out a wail from upstairs, and so she climbed the stairs slowly and headed into the nursery. She leaned over the crib railing and picked Peyton up, holding her on her hip as she rubbed her back and moved back and forth slowly in a swaying motion. She pressed a soft kiss to Peyton's head and told her gently, "You're okay. Go back to sleep baby, you're okay."
A minute or two more of the shushing and back rubbing and Peyton drifted back to sleep, so Quinn put her back in the crib and then she took a seat in the plush armchair across the room. She glanced down at her watch, which was displaying five twenty three in the morning and she sighed, leaning her head back against the chair.
She knew he wouldn't have the greatest reaction, but that hadn't been what she had been expecting. She couldn't blame him, he had every right to be angry with her and maybe she was naive or just hopeful but she wanted him not to be. She wanted him to overlook the fact that she had been lying to him about something so major for so long but she knew he wouldn't.
She had intentionally lied to him, sure, and every single day that went by where she didn't tell him her guilt got worse and worse but Quinn still stood by her choice. She knew she should have told him when she found out, but at that time she didn't know how to, and then the longer and longer she didn't tell him the more and more she made excuses and then eventually it had been weeks and the first round of the playoffs had gone by, as well as the second and when she realized just how great of a chance they had she couldn't do anything to jeopardize it.
Part of her wondered if maybe that was just another excuse. Like she used their season, and the playoffs and the journey to the cup as a reason to not tell James because she wasn't ready to. Truthfully Quinn hadn't come to terms with it herself yet, despite having so long to have done so. She had gone through surprise, sadness, a little bit of anger but it still felt like she had so many more unresolved feelings about it.
Then it hit her.
She didn't even know how she felt about it and she had months to deal with it, how in the world could she have expected James to react like she wanted him to, especially after finding out the way that he had?
So she got up from the chair and went into their bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the bed and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. She sent James a text.
I'm so sorry, please come home so we can talk.
When she didn't receive an answer from him after fifteen minutes Quinn knew she never would. She set her phone back on the nightstand and wandered downstairs. Nixon followed her into the kitchen where she made a cup of tea, and sat at the table to drink it. She reached down and pet Nixon's head while she drank, and every time the little hand on the big clock on the wall across from her moved to a new number Quinn let out a sigh.
She didn't blame him for being angry, or for taking off. In fact, a break was probably exactly what they both needed, but she was beginning to worry when he didn't walk through the door every time a new hour started.
And then, at nine thirty she heard a vehicle pull into the driveway, and the front door opened and closed and as Quinn came around the corner and their eyes met they both froze. Eventually James slipped out of his shoes and approached her, and Quinn was surprised when he wrapped his arms around her tightly. She hugged him back, much more gentle than he was holding her, and she felt him press a small, gentle kiss to her jawline before they pulled apart.
He told her softly, his voice laced with exhaustion, "I'm sorry for leaving and for... the way things happened."
"Don't apologize because you have nothing to apologize for. I'm sorry, I'm the one who has something to apologize for." Quinn told him softly, and she followed him to the couch where they both sat down together much like they had hours before. Quinn reached out and grabbed James' hands and she told him, "You're right, I should have told you and I know that... but the truth is I still don't know how to deal with it myself and I let that come before you and I and I'm so sorry."
James shook his head, "I wish you had told me before, but Quinn... it's okay. I get it, and I'll work on understanding it as long as you promise me that from now on it's one hundred percent honesty."
"I promise." She told him, and then she added, "You have to promise me though, that you're not gonna quit."
"Quinn..."
"No. I know you, I know how much you're gonna struggle with this and I know the only thing that's gonna keep you together is going out there with your team. And frankly, I need you to do it, because I need that too." She told him softly, and James flipped their hands around so that his large ones were wrapped around the outsides of her much smaller ones.
He squeezed her hands in his and told her, "I won't quit."
"Thank you."
She scooted closer to him, and she was surprised when he leaned forward and rested his forehead against her shoulder. Quinn rubbed his back as he tried and failed to not cry, and that first uneven breath he sucked in made her eyes well up with tears as well. She leaned over and kissed the side of his head and James told her, his voice shaking and his pitch breaking as he tried to hold his emotions down, "I'll deal with it."
"Hmm?" She asked softly.
He pulled away from her and looked her right in the eyes and he told her, "I don't like it, I wish you didn't want this, but I'm gonna keep my mouth shut and I'm gonna respect your wishes. I'm gonna keep playing, I'm not gonna ask you to try treatment and I'm gonna win you that Stanley Cup... on one condition."
"What's that?" She asked him.
James smiled gently, the first real smile she had seen from him since he found her in the bathroom, and Quinn smiled back at him when he told her, "You damn well better be there for it."
"I promise, nothing could keep me from being there. Not even death." She said, smiling, and James let out a strangled laugh that sounded more like a cry than a real laugh.
His voice was soft as he asked her, "You know, as much as I hate this... and as much as I don't want this to be so morbid but... have I ever told you how glad I am that I met you? That I managed to get you to fall in love with me? That I somehow went from arrogant, ice skating pig to someone you wanted to spend your life with, to have a family with?"
"Even now, when I talked you into this whole baby thing and now I'm leaving you to do it on your own?" Quinn asked him curiously. That was one of, if not the hardest, struggle she had been having since she left the doctors office in March.
"You didn't have to talk me into a baby Quinn, I know you think you did and I promise you that this isn't me trying to make you feel better. You didn't have to talk me into it, I was already in it one hundred and ten percent. I know it took us a while to get here, but I always wanted a family with you, I just needed to grow up a little first." James told her honestly, and he reached out and wiped her tears for her. It was then that he told her, "I think, maybe, deep down, I wanted her more than you did."
"I think you're probably right."
♠ ♠ ♠
Title; Lover, You Should Have Come Over by Jeff BuckleyI FORGOT TO WARN Y'ALL THAT THE NEXT CHAPTER WAS A FLASHBACK I AM SOOO SORRY.
And so, to make up for it, I'm updating a MUCH happier chapter of Roman right MEOW. ( CLICK HERE )
Sosorry. Sosorry.
But at least you get to see how James found out (I eluded to it in W.O.W but never went into detail and this was why. I also left out James going to the arena like I showed in W.O.W because since y'all already got to see that side I thought maybe a little bit of Quinn's side would be best)
Anyway, comments equal updates my loves!
Sidenote: I have written six chapters for the new Shea story... it's a good one (IMO) so... I am not at all opposed to updating that one early next week if y'all are interested: CLICK ME. SUBSCRIBE. BE READY.
This stupidly long authors note is over, carry on with your lives now :)