My Cuddly Little Cubby

Quinn could not find her tail. She had searched the whole house, with Beth scooting along behind her on all fours, but she just couldn't find it.

God, Santana had probably velcroed it to some random piece of fabric that she would never see again and her Tigger would be tailless.

This was not acceptable.

"Mom!" Quinn put her paws on her hips and waited for her mother to reply, watching Beth roll a plastic honey pot around the living room.

"Yes Quinnie?" Judy called. She sounded like she was in the kitchen, as if they needed any more pumpkin pies in this house. "Do we have trick-or-treaters already? Hurry and grab the candy! Oh goodness, do you think we have enough? I think you ate all the Starburst, but-"

"No, mom, where's my tail? Have you seen it?"

Quinn waited. All she heard was silence, plus the incoherent ramblings of her toddler. "Mom?"

"Yes, honey?"

Yep, she'd done something with it. Lost it, shrunk it, cut it, threw it out, bleached it, burned it, cooked it into a damn pumpkin pie.

"Where's my tail!" Quinn was losing her patience. She was already late because she'd been funneling Starburst into her mouth all afternoon and watching classic Pooh Bear on VHS with Beth.

Yes, she was a method actor. Rachel Berry would appreciate it. Rachel Berry.

"It's outside." Judy called, a little more weakly than her last few exclamations.

Quinn stopped wondering how angry her "scare partner" would be with her for showing up half an hour late, and focused back on her missing appendage.

"What? Why is outside?"

Judy hesitated again. "I used it to tie the gate to the yard shut. It keeps swinging open and Beth used all the string when she made that giant knot, so…"

Quinn sighed. Of course.

Oh, the latch doesn't work properly? Let's see what I can use to fix this. A fluffy Tigger tail!

"We're going now, Mom. I'll get it on the way out." Quinn scooped Beth up and walked through to the kitchen. The remnants of that afternoon's disastrous jack-o-lantern experience hung unpleasantly in the air and Beth scrunched her face in protest.

Judy turned around from her half-finished pie and smiled at them. "Have fun, Quinnie. Are you sure you want to take Beth? I mean, it is a haunted house and-"

"She'll be fine, mom. Mr. Schue put me with Rachel, so, you know, Beth will probably be the one scaring her." Quinn smiled fondly at the cuddly little Pooh Bear in her arms.

Judy walked over and kissed them both on the cheek. "Okay. Be careful. Oh, and drive safely. And Quinn, be nice to Rachel."

Quinn rolled her eyes and smiled at her mom before going out the back door and around the side of the house. She spent about ten minutes unwinding her tail from around the side gate. Her mom had created some sort of maximum security facility with the thing. Quinn finally velcroed it to its spot on the back of her fluffy Tigger pants before moving out front to the car and depositing Beth in her car seat.

She drove carefully because there were trick-or-treaters about, even though it was only six and the sun was still out. They were the really young ones with bedtimes and with their moms and dads carrying their bags of candy and escorting them to the doors to make sure they said "thank you."

Now Quinn felt guilty for eating all the Starburst.

They got to the school only twenty minutes late, and Quinn quickly unbuckled Beth and hurried across the parking lot. Before going through the doors to the main building, she put her hood up, and Beth giggled and tried to grasp the orange ears.

Quinn smiled. If she was going to be Tigger for Halloween, she was going all in and she was going to do a damn good job.

"Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, cuddly little cubby all stuffed with fluff, she's Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, willy nilly silly old bear."

Quinn sang lightly and Beth giggled as they made their way through the halls, which had been "haunted housified" yesterday at a ridiculously early hour. By the time the glee club had reached the last hallway they were decorating, they basically said, "fuck it," and tossed the fluffy web and fake spiders over the lockers and called it a day. Somebody had obviously re-done their masterpiece though, because Quinn was ready to have a heart attack as she finally reached the choir room.

She was about to open the door when somebody came barreling out of it, wearing…a…cardboard box?

"Dear God, Finn!" Quinn covered Beth's eyes when she realized that the boy was not wearing any pants. "Put some clothes on!"

"Quinn!" Finn stopped short in surprise, but took off again in a stilted walk-run-frantic-rush to find a pair of pants. "I'm having a…wardrobe…malfunction!"

Quinn grimaced and focused on Beth's yellow paws swatting at the orange ones covering her eyes. She walked through the door as Finn disappeared around the corner and was greeted by chaos, of course. Kurt and Blaine were apparently frolicking super-heroes, Spiderman and Superman respectively, and from behind them emerged Rachel, in a Piglet costume, of all things.

Just ridiculous.

"Quinn!"

And here she comes.

"You brought Beth!" Rachel squealed as she whipped Beth out of Quinn's arms, smiling brightly at them both. "And we're complementary! This is perfect!"

Quinn couldn't really formulate words. The pink ears on Rachel's head were distracting her.

"Rachel! Piglet!"

Apparently her daughter wasn't having the same problem. Rachel grinned down at the toddler and bounced her up and down a little.

"You look adorable, baby girl!"

"Um, is Finn—what was going on there?" Quinn finally asked, smiling when Beth fell into a giggling fit at Rachel's pig expression.

Rachel smiled and looked back up at her. "Well, Finn was under the impression that he could create his own Transformers costume." Rachel shook her head sagely. "Of course, the duct tape fell apart the moment he made a sudden movement and his… lower box fell off."

Quinn rolled her eyes as Rachel giggled some more with Beth. She took the opportunity to look around the rest of the room.

Puck was obviously Woody from Toy Story. Quinn assumed he was aiming for some sort of euphemistic double-entendre that he could make jokes about all night. He was arguing with Artie, who was dressed as a life-size Angry Bird, the red one of course. It looked like they were using a slingshot to fire pencils across the room at an unsuspecting Mercedes, who was dressed as either Clifford the Big Red Dog, or a devil…or a demon Clifford, which… points for originality.

Quinn turned around as the choir room door swung open again.

"OKAY, WHO TOOK MY FUCKING SWORD?"

"Santana!" Rachel screeched, hugging Beth's head to her fluffy, pink chest and covering the toddler's other ear.

"WAS IT YOU BERR- Oh, you brought mini Q!" Santana stopped short with a grinning Brittany behind her, dressed as Tinkerbell, and cooed to the little girl in Rachel's arms. "Aww, you look so cute, yes you do, yes you do!"

Quinn snorted at Rachel's facial expression. She looked absolutely terrified. Santana straightened up and glared at everyone as if she hadn't just had some sort of mental break.

"So, where's my sword people? Peter Pan has to have-"

"Here!" A giant Pikachu came stumbling through the door next with a plastic sword in his hands. Quinn identified the Pokémon as Mike, followed by Darth Vader.

Darth Vader spoke up. "Sorry. He wanted to see if it could beat my light saber. It didn't. Obviously." Tina looked pointedly at her boyfriend from behind her mask and Santana grabbed her sword, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Okay guys!" Mr. Schue spoke up as he emerged from his office in—dear Lord what was wrong with these people—a full-body Scooby-Doo outfit. His tail was not removable. "They're gonna start letting kids in soon, so let's all go to our stations. Remember, use the element of surprise and be loud! We want to terrify these people!"

Quinn wasn't sure that the best thing to do with first-graders was to terrify them, but, whatever. She and her partner and their little sidekick were dressed as Pooh Bear characters for God's sake.

Rachel was nodding along to Mr. Schue's advice, her Piglet face transformed into one of serious concentration. Beth seemed to be mimicking her with her chubby, happy face set into a focused frown. Quinn smiled at their expressions until Rachel turned and motioned for Quinn to follow her.

They filed out of the room with everybody else, splitting into groups of two and heading to their designated stations. Quinn and Rachel were at station number three, hidden near the wall of one of the hallways by a big, black sheet. They could barely see anything, as the only lighting came from a few lanterns strung along the lockers. It seemed like there was enough fog in the air to suffocate anybody under four feet tall.

"Do you wanna do the first one?" Quinn asked Rachel as they situated themselves behind the sheet. Rachel smiled excitedly and carefully handed Beth to Quinn.

"Sure!"

Quinn smiled in amusement. "I can hear them coming. You ready?" she asked quietly.

Rachel nodded and poised herself like she was about to run a 100-meter race. Muscles tense, Piglet ears flopping, bright pink nose and brown eyes ready and alert. Quinn looked at Beth to see what she thought of this crazy person. Her daughter seemed enamored with Rachel, gazing soulfully at her through the darkness. Quinn couldn't help but smile.

She heard approaching footsteps and murmurs, and held her breath, thankful that Beth was such a quiet little girl. Rachel took a deep breath and lunged suddenly out from behind the sheet, roaring at the top of her lungs.

Quinn nearly dropped her baby she was so terrified.

Apparently the little kids were too, if their wailing to the heavens was any indication. Rachel stopped dancing around like a roaring, demented Frankenstein's monster, and froze.

"Rachel!" Quinn hissed. "Get back in here!"

"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry! Um, continue that way please. They'll…give you candy. Sorry!" Rachel tried to placate the now scarred-for-life first-graders before slipping back behind the sheet, breathing deeply.

"Oh my God, Rachel! We're not trying to traumatize them! You've scarred them for life!"

Quinn knew Rachel hadn't actually been that scary; she was dressed as Piglet, after all. Quinn just had so much adrenaline coursing through her veins from her near cardiac arrest she could power a spaceship.

Rachel looked guilty and worried, from what Quinn could see of her face. "I didn't mean to make them cry!"

Quinn took a few calming breaths and figured Rachel could do the same before they all went home in tears. The smaller girl was leaning heavily on the wall. Beth seemed to not have processed anything that just happened.

God, shocked into a semi-conscious state. Good work, Rachel.

"Hey." Quinn said, regaining some rational thought. "Breathe, Rachel. You did well. They wanted a haunted house, and, well…you certainly gave them one."

Rachel took a few deep calming breaths and reached for Beth. "Can you take the next few?"

Quinn nodded, handing off her daughter. "You good?"

Rachel looked at Beth and nodded her head. "Did you think I was scary, Beth?"

Beth looked uncertain. She smiled a little in confusion. "Piglet?"

Quinn laughed. "Yeah, sweetheart. Rachel's Piglet. Do you wanna watch Mommy play with the kids now?"

Now Beth smiled enthusiastically and clapped her paws together. "Tigger!" she giggled out. Rachel bounced her up and down while Quinn prepared for their next scare.

She didn't pose like a ninja, like Rachel had, figuring that hadn't gone exactly to plan. When she heard the approaching laughter of a group of elementary schoolers, she swooped smoothly out from behind the sheet, laughing maniacally with her arms at her sides.

The kids screamed, as expected, but refrained from bursting into tears and running away. A few clutched at their chests a little breathlessly and everyone watched Quinn slide quickly back behind the sheet. They moved on, laughing and commenting about her Tigger costume.

Quinn smiled satisfactorily and looked down at Rachel and Beth.

"Mommy, not…scary." Beth looked completely serious. "Rachel really scary."

Quinn cocked an eyebrow at her daughter. Rachel looked a little too smug considering her praise was coming from a two-year old.

"Beth, I think Mommy was very scary." Rachel said, causing the Pooh Bear to look up at her. Beth seemed conflicted for a moment, then nodded resolutely.

"Yeah, Mommy very scary."

Quinn narrowed her eyes. Apparently Rachel Berry possessed the power to brainwash her innocent toddler.

Oh God, Barbra Streisand, Broadway, knee socks, vocal exercises, supernatural levels of energy, dimpled smile, incredibly sweet nature…

Quinn knocked herself back into reality, literally, by accidentally slamming her head back into the locker.

"Oh, Quinn, are you alright?" Rachel reached up, feeling for the back of Quinn's head, and ended up palming the taller girl's face.

"God, Rachel." Quinn swiped the invading hand away. "Yeah, my hood."

Rachel nodded and went back to brainwashing Quinn's child while Quinn prepared to jump out at the next group. They heard louder voices approaching.

"Man, I think I should go to the hospital." One kid stated.

"Where's your mom?" His friend asked, voice muffled behind a mask.

"Outside with the chaperones."

"Geez, how'd that girl even get a sword anyway? Seriously, she went straight for the neck. I don't-"

Quinn chose this moment to spring out from the sheet, screaming this time because Rachel Berry was not scarier than her. She bounced up and down a little, because, well, that's what Tiggers do. She figured it wasn't as bad as Santana maiming their guests.

The boys yelled and stumbled into each other and against the lockers. They were a little older, so they didn't cry, but they definitely weren't laughing either. Success.

Quinn moved back behind the sheet. "Better, baby?"

Beth clapped her paws. "Scary mommy!"

Rachel laughed too. "Scary mommy!"

Quinn shook her head, reaching for her daughter. "You're next, Rach."

The next few groups went much the same way. Rachel took Beth out with her once, attempting to reach an even higher-pitched scream. If Quinn's eardrums and the kids' tears were any indication, she was successful. They got a text about an hour and a half in that said they would be finishing up soon. Kurt had been taken to the hospital when he misjudged the length of the carving table he and Blaine were hiding under, and gave himself a concussion. Finn, the half-Transformer, had started throwing up from fog inhalation, and Quinn felt she might be right behind him. Santana had been forcibly removed from the premises about half an hour ago.

The last group to come through was made of middle-schoolers, and Rachel prepared to take them.

Quinn smiled at her. "Last ones, Rach. Make it good."

Rachel nodded determinedly and straightened her pink ears. "I got this."

Beth gurgled in Quinn's arms, now a little tired and disoriented. "Got this."

"That's right baby girl." Rachel remarked, poising like a pink ninja again and listening for footsteps. She leaped out from behind the sheet as soon as they got close enough, but instead of a scream, Quinn heard the boys' yells and a mild thump, that sounded very much like a little, fluffy Piglet falling on her butt.

She ripped the sheet to the side, so it came unstuck from the ceiling and billowed to the floor. Sure enough, the little blob that was Rachel was caught up in a mass of mildly panicked middle-schoolers.

Quinn pulled Beth closer to her chest and moved towards Rachel.

"Hey! Let her up!"

As soon as Rachel was sure she wasn't going to be stepped on, she pulled herself to her feet. Quinn wrapped her spare arm around her, watching the boys. They looked a little sheepish and ashamed as they hurriedly moved past.

"Sorry, it was my natural reaction."

"Yeah, sorry. That's the scariest Piglet I've ever seen, man."

Quinn kept her eyes narrowed at them, not that they could see, and watched them go. Then she turned to Rachel.

"Are you okay?"

Quinn thought she seemed fine. Not…shaking or hyperventilating or vomiting or anything. Just normal.

Rachel smiled shakily. "My pants broke my fall. They didn't mean to knock me down."

Quinn nodded as Rachel continued, "And this just means I'm scarier than you."

Beth giggled immediately, but it took Quinn a moment to process that.

"What! You fell on your ass!" she protested. "How does that make you scarier than me?"

Rachel tried to look serious for a moment. "Quinn, we don't say A-S-S around innocent ears."

Quinn rolled her eyes and Rachel smiled. "And I didn't fall on my…bottom. They pushed me. I was the victim of physical violence for my scare efforts. It doesn't get more real than that."

"Yeah, mommy." Beth remarked, absentmindedly, waving her hand through the fog in the air.

"Yeah, mommy." Rachel repeated.

God, that grin.

Quinn tried to smother her own smile. She didn't know how she should feel about Beth turning into a mini-Rachel. She did know that if she didn't get out of this hallway soon, the fog would make her vomit down her Tigger costume.

She was about to tell Rachel this when a figure loomed towards them through the darkness. A massive figure, who heard a sound behind him, and leaped into the air faster than Quinn had ever seen Finn do anything in her life.

"Finn." She called, to make their presence known.

Finn tried to steady himself and act like he hadn't just performed a feat of gymnastic brilliance because of a locker creak.

"Hey guys!" he greeted, and now Quinn could see that he was shirtless.

"Lost your top-box huh?" Rachel asked, nodding along like she knew it would happen all along.

Finn glanced down and nodded. "Yeah. But it wasn't my fault. Puck wanted to stand on my shoulders, 'cause the box was like a human table, and—"

Oh yeah, Quinn could tell this was a wonderful plan already.

"..he hit his head on the lights and the box collapsed. Mercedes and Tina broke his fall though, so he's just on concussion watch with Kurt."

Quinn and Rachel just stared at him.

"Anyway, Mr. Schue wanted me to tell you that you can go now, and thanks for helping out."

Rachel finally smiled. "Well thank you. And I hope you, uh, find…a shirt. It's cold outside. Happy Halloween."

Finn smiled and tweaked one of Beth's Pooh ears before walking back the way he had come. Quinn, her arm still around Rachel's shoulders, guided them out of the double doors Santana and Brittany had been manning. They found a shoe, two bags of abandoned trick-or-treaters' candy in pumpkin containers, a Tinkerbell headband, a box of Band-Aids, and—good Lord— a streak of blood.

Quinn quickly moved them past that and into the cool air outside, where she was finally able to breathe again. She was sure she had permanent pulmonary side effects from that fog. Beth immediately started crying.

"Oh, sweetie, are you tired? I know, it's bedtime isn't it." Quinn murmured, bouncing the toddler up and down lightly on her hip.

Rachel smiled sympathetically and reached for Beth and Quinn easily handed her over, watching their interaction.

"Hey baby girl. Did you like being Pooh Bear for Halloween?"

Beth kept crying, but nodded her head slightly before burying it in Rachel's fluffy top.

Rachel continued. "Do you know who Pooh's best friend is?"

Beth tried to stop her sobs so that she could answer, and looked up at Rachel's soft smile.

"Um, Tig-Tigger."

"That's right, baby girl! And what do Tiggers do best?"

Now Beth smiled a little and wiggled in Rachel's arms, demonstrating.

"Bounce."

Rachel grinned. "Do you wanna see Tigger bounce?"

Quinn narrowed her eyes as Beth nodded, watching Rachel expectantly.

Rachel looked over to Quinn with a smile. "Well, Mommy's Tigger right now so…"

Beth immediately caught on and clapped her paws together, sniffling away the last of the tears. "Mommy! Bounce! Bounce, mommy!"

It was terribly ridiculous and impossible to deny. Rachel Berry and her wide smile and Quinn's sniffly, Pooh Bear daughter. Combined, they were masters of persuasion.

So Quinn bounced, because they asked. She hopped up and down as high as she could while Beth and Rachel laughed.

"Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" she exclaimed, just like Tigger. Beth had the brightest smile on her face.

Rachel looked back down at Beth when Quinn finished, flushed bright red and totally proud to have made a fool of herself if it got Beth to laugh like that.

And Rachel, of course.

"What else do you know about Tiggers, Beth?"

Beth was still trying to control her giggles, and shook her head. Rachel smiled sweetly at Quinn as she spoke.

"Well…Tiggers are cuddly fellas, Tiggers are awfully sweet, but the most wonderful thing about Tiggers, they're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun…and Mommy's the only one."

Quinn had no idea how Rachel knew the Tigger song, and she didn't really care at that moment.

"Rachel." She interrupted, before Rachel could go on about how "jumpy, bumpy, clumpy, thumpy" she was.

"Do you like pumpkin pie?"

Rachel looked surprised, but opened her mouth to answer after a moment. Quinn cut her off, spewing words out faster than Tiggers were supposed to talk.

"I mean, my mom made, like, seven thousand pumpkin pies, so I thought we could go on a picnic. Or something, like a date. You totally don't have-"

"A picnic with just pumpkin pie?" Rachel interrupted, an amused smile on her face.

Quinn hesitated. Rachel was smiling, which was positive, right?

"Well, not just pumpkin pie. In fact I'll probably vomit if I have to eat any more of that, but I could, like, make-" Quinn fiddled with her paws as Rachel cut her off again.

"No."

Quinn gaze dropped uncertainly and Rachel rushed to finish her statement.

"I mean, no, you don't have to make anything. Let's have a pumpkin pie date! That'll be wonderful!"

Quinn glanced up to see Rachel beaming brightly at her. Beth had a proud look on her face.

Yeah, that's my mommy who just got herself a date with Piglet.

"Really?"

Rachel nodded enthusiastically. Beth copied her.

Quinn smiled and walked towards them. "Okay then. Come on, I'll walk you home, Piglet." She tweaked Rachel's pink ears and Beth's yellow ones.

Rachel chuckled as Quinn wrapped an arm around her, and Beth giggled in some sort of delusional, tired stupor caused by the late hour and the fog.

"Tigger likes Piglet!"

Rachel looked down at the flushed Pooh Bear face in her arms and then up at Quinn's soft laughter. She grinned brightly.

Piglet was pretty fond of Tigger too.