It was always raining in Marin County. It rained in the morning, again between mid-day takes, and sometimes, if the day was particularly grey, it rained a third time to ring in the night. Today had been very particularly grey, and now it was raining for the fourth time.
Rachel wondered absently what time it was— certainly it was past midnight. She watched Chet begin to shift and grumble next to her, protesting as rain began to splatter down onto his face. They’d all— she, Quinn, Chet, and Jeremy— been sitting in a tense silence for what could’ve only been hours now. Rachel, for one, felt stuck in a place of uncertainty. There was nothing more to do, nothing to move towards or away from. The season was over, the imminent implosion of their careers had been halted in its tracks, and there was no word yet on Coleman or Yael’s condition.
Rachel squirmed. She felt sick. It wasn’t guilt, exactly, that churned in her stomach, but it was something, alright. A confusing mix of relief and apprehension, maybe.
Chet grumbled again, interrupting her from her thoughts.
“Think I’m gonna turn in,” he announced, wiping away the water that was beading on his forehead. “C’mon Bobo.”
From behind them on the patio came his loyal dog, scuffling and whimpering to his place at Chet’s heels.
“G’night kiddo,” Chet’s lips pressed into a thin line as he turned to regard Quinn, his eyes filled with some, indecipherable emotion. “Rachel,” he nodded back in her direction.
“Chet,” she returned the nod and again, felt profoundly ill.
And here, Jeremy broke his silence, too.
“Me too,” he mumbled, in response to nothing at all. “See you ‘round.”
He paused only as he passed Rachel’s chair, stopping as if he had something to say, but only managing to open and close his mouth and run a hand sheepishly through his rain-soaked hair.
“Good season, Rach,” he said finally, and turned on his heel.
And then they were alone, Quinn and Rachel, laid out on the wet patio, two newly empty loungers separating them. The silence was uncomfortable and unnatural, but there was nothing to say. Words seemed almost futile.
Rachel allowed the silence to rest until she could bare it no longer. And then she peeled herself from her damp lounger and moved towards Quinn.
“Quinn,” she murmured.
A row of set lights in the distance clicked off, and then a porch light behind them. The crew was going to bed.
“Quinn,” she repeated, quieter this time. In the new darkness, she could hardly make out her companion’s face as it turned slowly towards her.
And Rachel felt a yearning for affection. The day had beaten her down— the season, the year. She longed to crawl onto Quinn’s lounger, to cry like a child, to have her hair stroked and her fears quelled.
“We won,” she whispered to Quinn. “Our secret’s safe.”
“Mm,” Quinn responded momentarily, and turned her face back to stare up at the sky. “We won.” Her voice came out dry, level, expressionless.
“Quinn…” Rachel had no more words to offer. She turned her face away, then, and stared into the distance, where a final crew-member was pulling the last equipment trailer shut for the night. She watched his figure disappear into a pick-up truck, listened to the engine rev to life.
“What do we do?” she asked finally.
Quinn snorted at this.
“Nothing, Goldberg. We wait.”
“Wait and see how many we can add to the body count.”
The sickness was back in Rachel’s stomach.
“Exactly right, little Goldie.”
Rachel could tell the words were supposed to have come out with a bit more humor, but they fell flat, stretched out and unsure.
The rain was hitting them more quickly, now, no longer a light sprinkle. A steady drizzle splattered into Rachel’s unwashed hair. She imagined briefly that it was a warm shower.
“Maybe we should go in,” she suggested.
Quinn nodded eventually, and soon was pulling her heels from her feet and making her way up to walk, bare-foot, gliding across the shining patio. She was half-way to the French doors of her office before she seemed to realize Rachel wasn’t following next to her.
“Hey,” she turned back towards her companion. “You’re coming?”
“Yeah.” Rachel shook her head, reminding herself how good warm heating and dry carpet would feel. “Yeah, sorry.”
Quinn’s office was warm and dry, as promised. In the darkness, the furniture loomed, but it was not unfamiliar. Rachel had spent many nights here, on this floor, on these couches, between these walls.
“You gonna go home?” she asked Quinn, who was regarding her now from the center of the room, unsure.
“No.” Quinn shook her head, deciding. “No, I’ll stay here. Too much shit to do tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Rachel shifted uncomfortably. She could not face exile to a cold, lonely trailer. Not tonight. “I’m gonna stay, too,” she began experimentally, “here with you, if that’s okay.”
“Suit yourself,” Quinn was already peeling off her damp stockings. “Unzip me?”
They moved like ghosts— quick, silent. Quinn retrieved them t-shirts from her emergency wardrobe. Rachel laid out their wet clothes, pulled the blinds. They were a well-oiled machine. And then there was not much left to do.
Rachel smoked a cigarette and watched the rain drops race one another down the glass door panes. Behind her, Quinn settled down on her office couch. When she was ready, Rachel turned away from the rain and stubbed out her cigarette, watching its final glow fade as she let it drop into Quinn’s tiny bronze ash tray.
She couldn’t be sure what tonight would be. She knew what she wanted it to be, knew what she needed it to be, but there was no telling with Quinn. Whatever it was— this thing they shared— it was spotty at best. They’d not spent a night together in months.
She turned back to Quinn, who was plucking a tastefully colored afghan from the back of the couch, wrapping it around her slight body.
Rachel, for her part, longed to curl up against her. She longed to kiss and to touch, too, but she would never ask— she still had some pride intact.
“Floor or couch?” she asked, sweeping her hair up into a knot, forcing herself to act nonchalant.
“Rachel,” Quinn regarded her incredulously, her eyebrows knotting into a scolding frown— what a silly question.
Relief flooded through Rachel. She crawled into Quinn’s warmth without question, drank her in, inhaled her scent. She had not allowed herself this close to Quinn in what felt like ages—
Since Vegas, she realized, when they’d fucked, drunk off champagne, high on expensive cocaine. She’d been too incoherent to feel it, to remember it or appreciate it. This, she had not realized until much later, when Quinn had alienated her, become icy cold, stung her and shunned her. It was only when Quinn had deprived her that she’d realized how dependent she’d truly been. (Only then had she crawled home to her mother). (Oh, how sick she truly was).
Now, she would make a point to remember this, to remember Quinn’s body and smell and security.
“Goldberg,” Quinn snapped, kicking at Rachel’s ankles. “Your feet are like ice. And you’re suffocating me.”
The scold was so familiar. Rachel could not stop the swell of tears in her eyes. She wanted to whisper that she loved Quinn, that she had missed her so much, that she didn’t know how to function without her, that she was sorry and tired and ached for her every moment—
But she could not. And she did not. She was quiet, moved her cold feet so that they wouldn’t touch Quinn’s.
They squirmed for many minutes until they found a comfortable position, Rachel’s head on Quinn’s chest, an arm slung across her body, Quinn’s chin on top of Rachel’s head, like old times.
“Good?” Quinn asked quietly.
Rachel nodded. Fingers combed along her hairline.
“We’re gonna be okay,” Quinn whispered after a long time. Rachel nodded again.
Her whole body felt hot when lips pressed against the crown of her head; she barely heard the “Rach…” that curled against her scalp, breathed from familiar lips. She shivered, and felt hot tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
She should have felt embarrassed, but she was too weak. Exhaustion crept up her throat and burst forth until she was whimpering and Quinn was shaking her head at her.
“Please fuck me,” she was begging, then. “I miss how you used to fuck me.”
Sunlight was filtering onto them when they woke with a start.
“Rachel! Does anyone have eyes on Rachel?” A walkie was crackling from the floor beside them. Rachel flinched.
“Quinn, have you seen Rachel?” Another walkie was yelling at them from somewhere deep in Quinn’s desk.
“Fffuck…” Rachel squirmed. Quinn was looking down at her with annoyance.
“Rachel, where are you?”
It was definitely Madison’s voice coming through the microphone.
“Fuck,” Rachel repeated, more pointedly this time. Her head hurt.
“Well, fucking answer it, Goldie.” Quinn’s eyes, red and raw, squinted at her in the morning sun.
There was no escaping reality. Last night’s jeans were still damp as she pulled them on.
“Go for Rachel.” Her walkie dropped with a thud back down to the carpet. Life would go on.