#kaaeffy

Christmas.

The only time Rachel had ever really celebrated the holiday had been with her lifetime best friend, and even that, Rachel knew, wasn't the typical event. The Bennetts weren't exactly a typical family, after all, and everything about them was just a little more glamorous than the rest of the world seemed to exist as.

But they'd given one another presents in December for as long as Rachel could remember being friends with Effy; a birthday gift for her, a Christmas present for Effy, everyone was happy and pleased with their new gifts. Rachel had prepared hers over the summer, after cheer camp - a scrapbook of the two of them over the years, with enough pages left over to fill in some from junior and senior year (back when she was convinced they were going to be invincible, at the top of the ladder, when everything in Bay Grove was good and not terrible), a mix tape she'd created that would somehow tell Effy the truth about how she felt (words she hadn't been able to say before, not out loud, not without wondering if she was going to lose her best friend forever because of it) and a simple bracelet, tiny silver handcuffs around her wrist that Rachel had a matching pair of. It would contrast with the rings Effy had given her, but in a way that felt strangely appropriate. Partners in crime, king and queen - they were two who were meant for each other, in some capacity, and one bump like falling in love with someone else wouldn't tear them apart for too long.

Or so Rachel hoped.

The Bennett house was quiet when she arrived - probably empty, save for Effy, as it almost always was for as long as she could remember since Erik disappeared after his own graduation - and Rachel had stopped knocking or ringing the doorbell years ago. She merely let herself in, following the sound of music up the stairs until she was standing in Effy's doorway, watching her best friend pack for vacation. A vacation Rachel would have been joining her on without question even two months ago. A vacation she was pretty sure she was banned from, and she chewed on her bottom lip, thinking forlornly of the bikinis she had stuffed at the bottom of a drawer, of the feeling of sand beneath her toes and lazy mornings making french toast together after late nights watching terrible movies.

"I brought your gifts," Rachel announced, and to her credit Effy didn't even flinch, just threw another shirt into a pile that Rachel couldn't even differentiate between the 'taking' and 'leaving behind'. "I thought about just leaving them here, like you did mine, but I wanted to make sure you actually opened them."

"Put them there," Effy commanded, pointing to a relatively clear spot free of clothing on her bed; Rachel obeyed immediately, sitting herself next to them and pulling her knees up to her chest as she watched Effy pack.

Her eyes caught sight of the glint of silver, a ring far too nice for high schoolers to truly exchange between themselves on Effy's left ring finger, one to match the same Rachel had on her own. She wasn't naive enough not to miss the connotation of the ring, though Effy wouldn't have thought too much of buying them wedding rings as a simple birthday gift - her tendency to spoil was one of the things that had made Rachel swoon on many occasions. Still, the sight left her a little breathless, her eyes almost welling with emotion before she blinked them away - in their current state, Rachel couldn't be sure Effy wouldn't just kick her out for doing something as emotionally taxing as crying over a present.

"I should go," Rachel finally said after a few silent minutes, the air almost awkward in a way it never had been before. "Let you pack for the island. I hope you enjoy the presents, E."

She unraveled herself, tightening her coat around her waist as she headed for the door, turning around just to see Effy paused, staring at the pile of gifts Rachel had brought in. It tugged on her heart enough to lead her forward, enough to brush stray hairs off her best friends cheek and kiss just at the corners of her mouth, a soft smile on Rachel's face as she pulled back. "Merry Christmas, Effy," she murmured, tugging lightly on a piece of hair. "I'll miss you."

Quinn Fabray.

Even the name tasted harsh on her tongue, the words from her phone screen that morning permanently etched on the inside of her eyelids. Everywhere she looked, all she could picture was the two of them. And unless Brody could come clean with an actual explanation, how was she supposed to believe any differently? In her position, who would? Two exes, spending the night under one roof.

She wasn't being paranoid. Quinn had kissed Finn when he was dating Kitty, and they didn't even have a history together. 'Moments' seemed to follow Quinn around, and who's to say she didn't have another with Rachel's boyfriend this time around? Perhaps believing that the two of them were out to get her was a little paranoid, but the evidence lay on the table in front of them. Brody was choosing Quinn, simply by choosing her happiness over Rachel's.

It was enough to break her heart.

She didn't need Brody, not the way she had when they first started. When it was nothing more than an escape from the mundane, a way to feel something in the mediocrity of Bay Grove. She had needed him then, because he seemed to light a part of her that felt dormant, that needed to be pulled out from under her. In only a few weeks, she had fallen harder for him than she had anyone before - he had, somehow, worked his way up to the same level as Blaine, almost as high as Effy.

No one seemed to equate Effy in her eyes.

Even after weeks of fighting and not speaking, she was still there to pick her up from the Hudson-Hummel household, holding down her horn until Rachel ushered out enough goodbyes to extract herself, books in hand as she skipped down to Effy's waiting car. This was what they did, whenever Rachel was feeling particularly morose or emotional. Just them, an iPod playing quietly, the windows rolled down and the wind in their hair. Even in the dead of winter, when they had to tread more carefully due to snow and ice, it was relaxing. Calming.

Effy had always been a calm to her emotional turbulence.

Rachel procured a single red velvet cupcake from her grasp for Effy, a small token of her appreciation as they sped off. Effy had said she didn't need to be bought, and Rachel, of all people, knew that. But there was a hint of a smile on her lips, Rachel pleased with the progress as she rolled her window down, kicking off her flats in order to put her feet up on the dash, curling in on herself as they headed out of town.

Everyone always took the highway to get anywhere, but on nights like this Effy would slip through the backstreets, quiet as a mouse until they were passing empty fields, a smattering of trees every now and then shrouding them from the moonlight above. Being able to see the stars as they drove out always made her feel smaller, somehow more capable of anything. Stronger. More vibrant. As if the reminder that she was a small piece of the universe made her feel more powerful.

There was a little field just outside of town that they had discovered when Effy had first started stealing Erik's car; wide open, flat, serene. They could go there with stolen mini bottles of whatever one of them managed to grab, or a joint Effy somehow always had hidden away somewhere, or even just themselves. They could practice routines, Effy helping Rachel finally manage her first handstand out there in the middle of nowhere, Rachel helping Effy with her tuck and rolls in the silence of the night, no sound around them except their own laughter.

Tonight they simply laid there, Rachel's phone buzzing away in the car, messages with half excused explanations that didn't make enough sense to bother with left unanswered. She didn't need Brody, she wouldn't want him. She had Effy, in whatever small grasp she was back in her life, and there was no one else she'd ever really needed.

A shooting star shot across the night sky, Rachel watching in silence. And instead of wishing for a remedy for her and Brody, she wished for only this; her, and Effy, together again. Whole, once more. The rest would fall where it was supposed to, but only if she had her best friend back with her.

"Thank you," she murmured quietly, her face pressed against Effy's stomach as they lay in the tall grass, fingers toying with loose strands of hair lazily. Effy didn't respond, but Rachel hadn't expected her to; her presence alone was her way of supporting Rachel, her own quiet way of acknowledging that she was still in her corner.

That even, after everything they'd done to each other, they were still on each others sides.