Filled for this prompt: The jocks (and Sue) don't seem to give much thought to the idea of throwing Tina against lockers, or tripping her, or bullying her in general. She's just there, and sometimes they throw her around, and she never complains or says anything.
Until she gets shoved hard/get tripped and falls down the stairs/slips on spilled slushie and falls down the stairs/gets pushed down stairs. Until she takes a hard fall, and has intense pain, and the next thing she knows, the nurse at the emergency room is telling her how very sorry she is, but she can expect intense cramping for the next couple of days.
Tina didn't know she was pregnant (or if she did know, she only knew for a couple of days, and she hadn't told Mike yet). Take it there from where you will.
Author's note: Like my last fic, I originally filled this anonymously. I also wrote it at two O'clock in the morning. Consider yourself fairly warned!
It isn't unusual. Tina has been shoved around almost every day since she started high school; an elbow to her ribs to send her flying into the lockers, a foot stuck out in the cafeteria to make her trip and land on her face. It happens
She doesn't tell Mike about it. There's no point in upsetting him over something that isn't even that big of a deal. During one particularly intense makeout session in her room, he asks her where the bruise below her left breast came from, and she blames it on her clumsiness. She'd fallen when choreographing dance moves for Glee in her room, she tells him, and hit the edge of her desk.
He believes her, and the subject is dropped. They begin again with the kissing and the touching and the whispered words into each other's ears; the stuff that makes her feel good, like she's special and worth something, like she's not just there to be pushed around. Things get even more heated, the rest of the clothes come off, and that night is the first time Tina Cohen-Chang is made love to.
It isn't like the movies. The movies don't tell you how your emotions can run away with you and that you can burst into tears in the middle of having sex even if it's with someone you really like and oh dear could it be any more awkward let me die let me die right now. But Mike holds her, presses gentle kisses against her neck, tells her to let it all out.
Tina really freaking loves Mike Chang.
Things kinda go to hell a couple of months later. In a mirror of their first night together, they're on Tina's bed with lips and tongues and hands all working furiously. Mike's hands come up to tug on the hem of her shirt, pulling it up, before he pauses suddenly.
"What the hell is this?"
Tina frowns, and manoeuvres herself around a little to see what he's looking at. "It's . . . another bruise?"
"How did you get it?" Mike looks like he's about to cry, and she doesn't understand it. It's not like a bruise is some life-threatening wound or anything.
"I fell over. My heels are really hard to walk –"
"Tina, if someone's hurting you, you have to tell me!"
She's completely shocked. "What? No! Nobody's hurting me!"
Mike really looks like he might cry now. "You're lying to me. I can tell. I've noticed so many bruises on you, ever since that first night we . . ." He trails off. "I've been noticing for months, but I never said anything. Why didn't I say anything?" Tears are glistening in his eyes, threatening to fall. "God, please, just tell me who's been hurting you! I can help you! I can protect you! Please!"
She doesn't tell him, and eventually he leaves, feelings of betrayal shining in his face. She was right not to tell him, wasn't she? All she was doing was protecting him from knowledge that would hurt him. And the shoves really aren't a big deal, anyway. Kurt got it ten times worse than her.
The next morning, she still feels like crap about her fight (was it really a fight?) with Mike. She has an uneasy feeling in her stomach that comes with arguments, and the nerves about how Mike will react to her today are bringing her out in cold sweats. She doesn't have her mind on anything but a mantra of Mike, Mike, Mike as she walks up the stairs to get to her first period class (Math. Or was it history?).
"Hey! Watch where you're going, freak!"
It's some jock she can't even remember the name of, saying words she's heard a thousand times. When his hands meet her shoulders, that's something that's happened a thousand times before as well.
But this time it's different. This time, she doesn't just fall into a locker or onto her butt on the floor. This time, when those hands meet her shoulders and give her a shove (not even a hard shove. All this happened, and it wasn't even a hard shove.) she stumbles and falls down a flight of stairs.
There's an explosion of pain when she lands; pain that comes from deep inside her and cuts like a knife. She feels like something's twisting her insides, wringing them out like a damp rag. The worst period pains she'd ever didn't compare to this.
She's dying. Some idiot shoved her and now she's dying. It's dark and there's pain and heat and Mike's mad at her and she never plucked up the courage to tell him about the missed periods or to buy that pregnancy test but none of that matters because it will all be over when she's dead.
When things become clear again, the first thing she notices is that disinfectant smell that makes her think hospital. Unlike most people, Tina actually doesn't mind hospitals. It's the place where the sick come to get better. If she's awake, and she's in hospital, it must mean she's not dying; it must mean she's getting better. The pain is still there, but it's duller now, and isn't constant.
A nurse walks into the room some time later. She's a tallish woman probably in her thirties, with curly bright-red hair that ends just below her chin. Before Tina has a chance to ask her anything, a particularly brutal burst of pain grips her midsection and she can't help but let out a moan. The nurse grimaces. "Sorry, Sweetheart. You'll probably be having cramps for the next couple of days."
"Why am I here?" Tina finally manages to croak out.
"You had a miscarriage, you poor thing."
"A . . . what?" Tina knows full well what the word means. It means she lost a baby. A jock pushed her, she fell down the stairs, and she lost a baby whose existence she had been denying.
The nurse's voice is soft when she speaks. "Your fall caused some serious damage to the fetus, and it didn't survive. I'm so sorry." She really does look sorry. "Your parents should be here soon, and your boyfriend is in the waiting room. Do you want to speak to him?"
She doesn't. She doesn't want to speak to Mike. But deep down, she knows she has to.
She closes her eyes for a little while, thinking that maybe she can block out everything that's happened. She feels a warm hand on hers, and opens her eyes to find Mike's worried face. He looks just like a little boy. How can she possibly tell him about this?
But as soon as his arms fold around her, she finds herself blurting out everything. All about the people at school who were responsible for her bruises, about the missed periods and courage she hadn't possessed, and about the pain that came when that jock did to her what had been done a thousand times already.
They're both crying by the time she finishes, so hard it's like they'll never stop. Mike's arms are tight around her, protecting her. She doesn't want him to let go, but she knows he will. She lied to him, kept things from him, and more than that lost his baby. He'd be crazy to still want to hold her after that.
But hold her he does. He holds her until her parents come, and he holds her while she tells them what happened. He holds her when the doctor comes in to explain things in more detail (for her parents' benefit more than hers. She's too drained to listen).
He's silent for the whole time her parents are there. They leave to get food, and this is when he breaks his silence. He leans forward, lips inches from her ear, and whispers "You let people push you around because you don't realise how precious you are. But you are. Tina Cohen-Chang, you are the single most amazing person I've ever met. Sometimes – hell, most of the time – I wonder what an incredible, beautiful girl like you is doing with a loser like me. But I'm forever grateful that you are with me." He sniffs, and she realises he's crying again. "Nobody's ever going to hurt you again, I promise you that. I was stupid and oblivious, and I am so sorry. I could have protected you." His body starts to shake. "I'm going to protect you from now on, I swear. Even if – if you decide you don't want to be with me anymore, I will still protect you if you need it. And this isn't some sexist knight-protecting-his-damsel-in-distress thing. I'm sure, if the positions were reversed, you'd do the same for me."
There are a thousand things Tina wants to say to that, but she only manages two words. "I would."
She expects that to be the end of it, but Mike starts talking again. "All this . . . none of it was your fault. Not the miscarriage, not any of it." He pauses. "Let's have one rule: from now on, we tell each other everything, no matter if we think it'll upset the other one. We have to stop something like this from happening again."
Tina really freaking loves Mike Chang.
And it looks like Mike Chang really freaking loves her back.