A/N - Sorry this took me Forever!

Disclaimer: Still don't own Glee.

Chapter 6

The equivalent to a human earth month later, I sat out on the balcony, overlooking the great expanse of the beautiful landscape. This world was different from my former world — yet, still somewhat the same. The colors here were brighter, more alive. Like rich tasting food. It made my former world seem dull. Most of the plant life and trees were the same, but the Elven world had several species of trees that could put ours to shame. There were purple trees that bore green fruit, a light pink tree that looked a lot like a birch, and even a golden-colored tree with large fuzzy leaves.

It was all so incredible. And beautiful.

After our bath together that day, Quinn had escorted me back to the rooms that were now essentially my new apartment. She gave me a light kiss and a sexy wink before she had to go attend to her royal duties, leaving me alone. It wasn't long before Brittany arrived and we had lunch together.

I tried not to let my disappointment show, but I had hoped Quinn and I would've spent the day together. I still felt like I barely knew anything about my new husband. What did she like to do? What was her favorite book? Her library was so large, it was obvious she enjoyed reading. I didn't even know her favorite color! Or favorite food! All the questions you learn on a typical first date. But she was my husband, and I knew none of these answers.

I felt disheartened, but did my best to keep up my side of the conversation with Brittany. She was bubbly and naturally excited, and I thoroughly enjoyed her company. She told me all about the palace and the servants, regaling me with stories that quickly had me laughing. About the scandalous affair between the Assistant Chef and one of the maids. About how some of the women live to gossip, and to be careful what you say around them. The weekly card game night that the butlers and mechanics have, and the different 'clubs' the women were involved in.

Time flew by as we spent hours just talking and laughing. I was happy that I had Brittany to keep me company until I could see Quinn again. The only problem was — Quinn still hadn't come back to see me. I hadn't seen her since the day she left me at the door to my apartment, with only a last brief kiss.

Brittany continued to tell me not to worry, that the king had many duties that kept her very busy, and oftentimes away from the palace. And that the passage of time in this world was perceived differently by the Elven, but I was still irritated that Quinn hadn't at least sent me a message or something to let me know that she wouldn't be back for a while.

How was she supposed to expect me to trust her if she just goes off to who-knows-where without even letting me know?

As the days turned into weeks, my irritation gradually shifted to mild anxiety… then finally to full-out worry of my initial fears that I was no more than a viable womb to the Elven King. I struggled not to let my fears show in front of Brittany, or my new ladies-in-waiting, Tina and Kurt. I tried to distract myself from my growing panic — and if I were completely honest, despair — by asking them as many questions about the elven realm and its many protocols and customs as I could.

If I was to live the rest of my life here, I wanted to know everything about it.

Over the weeks, I learned about the different societies in the realm and what each one was known for — some were in charge of all the farms that grew grain and vegetables, some had factories, some had more educated citizens than others. However, each society had their own mini-government — more like a board of advisors who were chosen by Quinn — that oversaw the wellbeing of its people, then was responsible for communicating all issues and updates to Quinn.

I found I enjoyed all three of my new friends immensely. They were each very different and unique, but somehow we all meshed together perfectly. Tina was bubbly like Brittany, but she also had a down-to-earth side. She could be serious if needed, and was the one who kept Brittany and Kurt on schedule. Which happened quite frequently, as Brittany and Kurt were known to be sometimes a little scattered.

Kurt wasn't really bubbly like the girls, he was more… flamboyant. The instant I met him, I immediately understood why Brittany had told me that he would fit in perfectly as a lady-in-waiting. Each morning he laid out the outfit I was to wear and he was determined to style my hair in a different way each day. He loved music — they all did — but Kurt had a love of the structure of music and how it affected the soul. Brittany and Tina just loved to dance around and sing.

After days of them calling me "My Lady", I sat them down and insisted that they call me Rachel. They heartily refused at first, saying it wasn't proper, and the punishment for "disrespecting" the Royal Wife was severe. We finally came to the agreement that they would use my name only when we were alone in my apartment.

They had also begun to teach me the Elven language — a dialect so incomprehensible and unpronounceable to my human tongue that I had doubt I would ever learn it. It helped immensely that they were very patient and encouraging with me.

They were all genuinely curious about the human realm, so in return I shared with them everything they wanted to know about my former world.

One day, when I had asked Brittany if she was a teenager since she looked so young, she'd just laughed at me, telling me she had just celebrated her 500th birthday. The admission had floored me. She only looked to be around sixteen years old, as did Kurt and Tina — who noticeably didn't share their own ages. For all I knew, they — and even Quinn who looked to be around mid-twenties at the most — could have been thousands of years old! Quinn had certainly spoken of centuries as if they were nothing. Of course, I was going by human standards of aging. But still. Holy cow!

I was so grateful for their presence and detractions, otherwise I probably would have curled up into a ball of misery after only a few days alone, with only my dark thoughts and fears to keep me occupied in this lonely new life.

When I voiced my concerns about the safety of the balcony, they reassured me repeatedly that the wind wouldn't be a problem. I then found it to be my favorite place — other than the private garden that Quinn had apparently given me as a marriage gift — to relax with the my new friends. We often all sat out there, having an Elven version of tea.

"So let me get this straight, next year you won't have to work at all?" I asked Tina in disbelief.

She nodded. "It's custom. Long ago, our three families were some of the few who tied themselves to the support of the royal family. In exchange for our service, we are allowed to set up residence within a single wing of the palace. Starting at age twenty, we begin working in whatever position we have grown up preparing to fulfill."

"One year of service. One year of rest," Brittany added. "At least for those who serve within the royal household. The pact is different for those who wish to serve in politics or in one of the other trades."

"So… you actually wanted to serve the Royal Wife?" I asked, finding the idea baffling.

The three elves exchanged a confused look.

"Well, yes. The fact that you are human makes no difference to us," Kurt said, taking my hand and gently squeezing it as if to comfort me.

I shook my head. "That's not what I meant. I'm just trying to understand your choice of jobs. You make it sound as if you chose to be someone's lady-in-waiting when you were just a child, rather than waiting to be assigned the duty."

If anything, they looked even more confused now.

"To serve at the side of the Royal Wife, to help in the rearing of the next king and his royal siblings, is something many of us desired," Tina explained. "Her Majesty has told you about our race's difficulties in conceiving, yes?"

She looked so sad, that I suddenly felt like an idiot. Even with my trepidation of becoming a parent in such an uncertain situation, I could easily see how heartbreaking it would be if no one in the entire realm was able to have children. Knowing that if something didn't change, the Elven race would become extinct.

I nodded. "She told me an Elven child hasn't been born in the realm in over five hundred years."

"And that last child was me," Brittany said with a small, but giddy, smile. "Ever since my mother told me that when I was young, I've been determined to be by the side of the woman who would bring life back to our people."

Hearing that, not only did I suddenly feel like the lowest and most selfish person alive, I suddenly felt the weight of an entire civilization crash down onto my shoulders. How had my life come to this? "But… surely, I'm not the only human trying to conceive an elven child right now, right?" I asked, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.

"Yes. You are," Tina said, sounding proud. "The heir must be born first."

My eyes bugged out of my head. The continuance of the Elven race all rested on me? And on my ability to birth the future king? What if it never happened? What if I never conceived? Would I be scorned by the people for the rest of my life?

Tina went on, oblivious to my inner meltdown. "After he is born, then one male from each elven family is chosen by our king to take a human wife to continue their family line."

I raised my eyebrow in uncertainty. "I'm not sure how many men you're talking about, but somehow I don't think a bunch of human women suddenly going missing all at once in my world will go unnoticed."

Kurt shook his head. "That's not the way it is done."

"But, that's how I was brought here," I reminded them, remembering the night I was abducted from my bed.

"But that was not how it was done by our ancestors," Tina informed me. "During the last Plague of Infertility, magical doorways were set up throughout the human realm near most of the human settlements. That way, it would allow our two races to meet in a… some type of dimensional space between our two worlds. Should a human woman wander inside, they were then offered a choice to join us in our realm. But it is something that will happen slowly over a great length of time. Like we explain, time is different here than in your old world."

I contemplated the explanation. If this had happened thousands of years ago, I could very well imagine what those human women thought when they saw an elf for the first time. Depending on their beliefs, they probably had mistaken them for gods. But nowadays — thanks to popular media — the women would either know immediately what they were, like I did, or they would mistake them for aliens… or maybe even angels. Either way, I didn't think it would be quite so easy to find willing human mates this time around. Unless they set up a portal outside a Comic Con.

"Just the fact that you are here, Rachel, has my elder brother and his wife excited about the possibility of having their own children in the near future," Tina added, laughing softly. "His wife, Arrdi, has asked me everyday since the night of your Consummation whether there have been any signs that Her Majesty's seed has borne fruit. I honestly haven't seen the ladies of the court this excited in quite a while."

Kurt and Brittany both nodded, adding their agreement to Tina's statement.

I looked down uncomfortably at my fidgeting hands.

While my friends hadn't come right out and asked me, during the last four weeks, all three of them had frequently dropped hints in seemingly unrelated topics of conversation of their desire to know whether or not I thought I was pregnant. It was honestly unnerving.

"I-I don't think it happened this time," I said quietly, answering the unspoken question. If anything, the light period I'd had over a week ago took care of the uncertainty. I'd kept that little incident from my friends, not knowing if I would be able to keep the relief from my expression. The guilt.

Once again, Tina took my hands between her own. "Please, do not let it worry you," she reassured. "No one expects you would conceive so soon. I suspect it will take many moon-cycles, or perhaps even years. The old texts are quite clear on that."

"Besides," Brittany smiled happily, "your days of fertility will begin again tomorrow. Just in time for Her Majesty's visit."

My head instantly shot up. "Qu-I mean, my lord husband is coming home tomorrow? She's actually coming back?" I asked, wincing internally at the eagerness in my voice. Damn it… I really had fallen for her, hadn't I…

"That's what the messenger said this morning," Kurt confirmed. "We were instructed to have dinner prepared and waiting for you two in Her Majesty's personal chambers tomorrow evening. I believe she will come for you herself."

~~~~~QR~~~~~

The next morning, I was exhausted when Brittany came to wake me up, having gotten very little sleep out of both anticipation of seeing Quinn and nervousness. It felt like it had been forever since I'd last seen her.

Every time she had come to see me before she left, we'd progressed to sex fairly quickly, but I didn't want that to happen this time. I wanted us to just hang out together for a while and talk, maybe out on the balcony if she wasn't in the mood for a walk in the garden — something I'm embarrassed to admit that I've been daydreaming about. Yes, I really did have it bad for the blonde elf; but instead of being happy about it, it only made me angry at myself. I'd always thought I had more common sense than to invest so much of myself into a relationship as uncertain as this one right from the beginning. I was never the type of girl to swoon over strangers. But who knew that all it would take was kind words, a sexy smile, a hot body, and mind-blowing sex to win me over so thoroughly? It really was annoying.

However, I was determined not to let my traitorous body get in the way tonight. After everything my ladies had taught me, I had a month's worth of questions for my husband, and I would demand answers — to at least some of them — before going anywhere near a bed.

After a visit to the royal baths, I was sitting in my bedroom at the dressing table brushing out my hair and snacking on a bowl of grapes while I waited for my ladies to bring my breakfast, when the nausea hit. It came on so suddenly and violently that I almost fell out of my chair in shock. I clamped a hand over my mouth and an arm around my stomach as I scrambled towards the en suite bathroom.

I barely made it in time to drop to my knees in front of the elven version of a toilet (what amounted to a marble aqueduct of perpetually flowing water that spanned the entire length of one of the walls in which a person would squat or hover over to do their business. It took me quite a while to get used to it, and I admit to desperately missing a normal human toilet). Once there, I then proceeded to throw up everything I'd just eaten, and then some, until my throat was raw and I was reduced to dry heaves.

Once I was certain my stomach was finished rebelling, it took every ounce of the little strength I had left to keep from falling face-first into the water stream. I pulled away and leaned my back against the cool marble instead.

I looked up to the close ledge against an adjacent wall where a pitcher of water sat. However, as awful and weak as I felt, it might as well have been miles away rather than a few feet. But if I didn't rinse the sour taste of bile from my mouth soon, I feared I would start to dry heave again. But what I really wanted to do was curl up into a miserable ball and cry, because even though there were several different explanations for my sudden sickness, I knew damned well which one was correct.

"In contrast to the Elven, humans are exceedingly fertile."

Quinn's words echoed through my mind almost mockingly as I wrapped my arms around myself in an effort to control my sudden shaking.

Quinn would be ecstatic. My friends would be ecstatic. The entire elven realm would probably be ecstatic. But the only thing I could feel in that moment of realization was complete panic. Despite all the previous signs that had pointed to the contrary, I finally admitted to myself that I was pregnant.

And that still terrified me. All I could think was, Quinn can't know! She was finally coming to see me tonight after being gone and out of touch for a whole freaking month, and fate had chosen today of all days to drive me to my knees with morning sickness!

Once my ladies had told me about Quinn coming back, deep down I'd had to admit to myself that the timing of her visit corresponding with the start of my ovulation cycle wasn't coincidental at all. And once she found out that I was pregnant, would she even have a reason to visit me anymore, except maybe to occasionally check on the progress of the pregnancy?

I knew I had to stop shaking and wallowing in misery on the floor. Brittany would be back any minute now with the others, and there was no way I could let them find me like this. They would know immediately what was "wrong" with me, and nothing short of the end of the world would keep them from immediately running to their king with the glorious news. I needed time — time to sort out my feelings about having a child in the first place, something I'd been spending the last few weeks trying not to think about at all. Which, given my current predicament, was about the stupidest thing I'd done since our "wedding" night.

I needed time to talk with Quinn and figure out what kind of relationship she wanted with me. Now that my pregnancy was all but confirmed, things would definitely have to change. The first being that she couldn't just leave me here alone, waiting without a single word from her until she either got an itch for sex or I was fertile, because there was no way in hell I was just going to sit in this royal apartment and spit out babies for her like a damned machine.

Maybe it was because I hadn't been in Quinn's overwhelming presence for so long, or the panic of realizing I could very well be carrying an elven child inside me, but for the first time in a long while, my mind felt clear and wide awake. For the past month, I'd lived my life as if I were moving within a dream, accepting my fate and everything things as they came. But now I was determined to never let myself fall into that deceptive spell ever again. If I was going to bring a child into this world, then damn it, it was going to be a family effort! And the only way I had a chance of making that happen was to work on establishing a deeper relationship with Quinn, other than as her occasional bed-warmer.

An image of the queen's sneering face flashed into my mind, and I scowled. What would be the queen's role in my child's life? I'd be damned if I let her even get close to him or her. But was that really for me to decide? Or once the heir was born, would I be pushed aside while Quinn made every decision concerning his life? Was I only to be a silent womb with no say in how my children were raised?

Pushing those agonizing thoughts aside for another time, right now I had more pressing concerns. I knew I had to get through tonight without ever letting on how sick I'm actually feeling.

And I knew it would have to be a Tony Award-worthy performance.

Having to eat dinner with Quinn with a queasy stomach would be absolute torture! Even so, I needed to talk with her without the news of a baby clouding the issue. I didn't want to ever feel like she was just humoring me because she didn't want me upset for the baby's sake. That would be infinitely worse than completely ignoring me. I didn't want one of the most important relationships of my life to be a lie.

But first things first — I had to get off the damn bathroom floor before Brittany and the others found me here!

Just climbing to my knees almost had me hurling again, but I just gritted my teeth, refusing to cry. I used the marble ledge of the toilet/aqueduct as a crutch as I climbed back onto my feet with a stubbornness I'd often exhibited in my former life. I hadn't cry when the schoolyard bullies pull on my double braids like they were reigning in a horse; I hadn't cry at my mother's funeral or when I was rejected at audition after audition. So I'd be damned if I was going to cry just because an elven king knocked me up, causing me to have a little morning sickness…

Once on my feet, my nausea subsided enough that I felt I could walk over to the pitcher of water without sending me running back to the aqueduct again.

Finally being able to rinse out my mouth thankfully improved my level of nausea to where I felt I might just be able to ignore it and act fairly normal. The only problem would be the breakfast I knew I would be expected to eat in a few minutes.

I frowned thoughtfully. Maybe being forced to eat breakfast wouldn't be the tragedy it seemed. If I became queasy again, then maybe I could convince my friends that it was just nerves about seeing my husband again, and that I had no appetite as a result. Brittany had remarked before that I always seemed to be in a perpetual state of anxiety, and that she wished I would relax more, so there was definitely already a precedent established. If anything, it would at least give me the practice I needed before my dinner date, because if I couldn't manage to fool my ladies-in-waiting, then there was no way in hell I would be able to fool Quinn.

I knew better than to hope that my nausea would subside by this evening; life had never granted me any favors, and I really doubted it would start now at the moment when I really really needed one.

I splashed some cool water on my face, hoping it would add a little color to my undoubtedly pale face, before I carefully left the bathroom and headed back to my dressing table. It was a relief to be sitting down again as my stomach decided to give another unpleasant lurch at that moment as if to remind me who the one in charge really was.

After taking several deep, shuddering breaths to keep the dry heaving at bay, I pushed aside my bowl of grapes as far from my sight as possible and grabbed my hand mirror. Did my complexion still look a little green? Were my eyes dull or a little too bright? In the low lighting of a single lamp, I couldn't really tell. Maybe I could pass off looking a little sickly as nerves, too.

Thank goodness Brittany had already seen me this morning before I'd puked my guts up. If I'd gotten sick during the night, there would've been no hiding it from her, no passing it off as simple nerves. I swear elf ears could hear a pin drop ten miles away…

"I can do this," I muttered to my reflection, but I didn't look very convinced.

The front door to my apartment clicked open, and I involuntarily went rigid. Unfortunately, the sudden rush of adrenaline instantly triggered a humongous cramp in my stomach, and I very nearly lost it again as I doubled over momentarily before I could stop myself.

A sound of chatter, that was distressingly close, made it past the thundering sound of my own panicked heartbeat in my ears. I only had seconds to pull myself together!

I can't let Quinn find out. I can't let Quinn find out. I can't let Quinn find out…

~~~~~QR~~~~~

Let me know if there's anyone still out there reading this! :)