Rachel had no idea what she had done to end up looking like she was wearing a slushy version of a rainbow tie die dress. The assault had been a surprise, really. Rachel wasn't sure what had made the hockey team take up slushying so heavily now that it had all but disappeared after Karrofsky left and Azimio graduated last may. She had even managed to dodge the poorly educated football and hockey players and their weapon of choice for the first half of the day. Then after exiting the auditorium which she had forgotten was being used by the drama class for the improv test she'd already aced the day before, Rachel had been surrounded and slushied by a group of six boys.
"We figured you'd like to taste the rainbow, fag spawn!" One of them had spit out before she was shoulder checked as half the group made to pass her and disappear down the hall. Her left shoulder was killing her, and the nurse had been entirely unwilling to give her any kind of over the counter pain medication.
To compound the issue, Rachel had no other clothing to wear today. She'd had to take her slushy kit home yesterday to wash but hadn't been able to get everything in the wash until that morning. The Jewish girl had thought of changing into her clean gym clothing but the locker room had been locked and coach Bieste absent. Then Figgins had been unwilling to get the door unlocked for her, and there was no way Coach Sylvester would be willing to let her use the Cheerios locker room.
Mr Shue had come down with some kind of Flu and was gone for the week so the choir room was locked as well, and she hadn't known where to go. So here Rachel sat, in the tilting, uneven chair someone had placed on the section of the school's roof she was on. Her clothes were covered in sticky, melted, rainbow, slush and she was getting to the point where she was alternating between rubbing her arms and blowing into her hands to generate some heat in the December cold. She hadn't wanted to ruin her essentially new white pea coat by putting it on over her ruined dress. Not that her dress hadn't been perfectly white before.
There was only another forty five minutes until school ended, at which point she could finally go home. She was obviously skipping class but she'd explained to her literature teacher the problem and she'd be marked present, so that wasn't a problem. However, if she showed up home before school was over there would be a problem.
Rachel knew she would have some difficulty explaining her home environment to anyone at all really. Especially anyone in glee who had ever heard her talk about her nurturing, joyful fathers.
It wasn't that they didn't love her, exactly. Hiram and Leroy Berry just expected a lot from her. They expected a star. A star who had excellent grades, who participated in plenty of extracurricular activities , who got the solos in glee club, who had the starring role in community theater productions. Who would be a Broadway star.
The pressure they put on her sometimes seemed to amount to more than she could handle alone, but she always did, for she had little choice. When she didn't meet their expectations it felt as i they didn't love her at all. For example, when Mr. Shue filled the duet slot with Quinn and Sam and gave the solo performance to Santana.
That had not been a fun night. But the worst part of all of this, Rachel thought, was the fact that she at times found it difficult to differentiate between the Rachel Berry her fathers were forcing her to be, and who she really was. When she was a young child, she had loved singing and the idea of one day being on Broadway, but they had stolen that from her. Now she didn't know who she was or what she wanted for herself and her future.
And really, even if Rachel could figure out what she wanted, how would she achieve it? Her father's certainly would not pay for her to attend any of the non performing arts schools without drama or theater programs that she had applied for without telling them. So when or if she decided she would be supporting herself alone. Which..when she thought about it sounded...amazing. So perhaps that was one thing she had decided she wanted. Some amount of self sufficiency. Rachel nodded, lifting her phone to check the time. Thank god it was water proof. Two eighteen, good. School had been out for a few minutes, she could finally head for home. Both of her fathers would already be home so she'd unfortunately have to talk to them and explain what had happened before she could shower and change. She went to stand from the wobbly chair she'd been sat in for the last forty five minutes when she felt her foot slip on the ice below her sending her careening forward and over the side of the roof. The brunette had less than half a second to bend her knees like she'd read about before she hit the ground on the pad of her left foot,immense pain shooting up her entire leg instantly, making her scream for the first time since she'd slipped on the ice she hadn't even noticed fifteen feet above her. Before she could confirm the fact that something felt broken, her head hit concrete and she lost consciousness.
Students that had been in the process of leaving the building surrounded the prone girl, all of their eyes wide.
"Holy shit, did she just jump?"
"Dude, no way. Berry just jumped off the roof!"
"What the hell are you idiots doing standing in the way of the god damn door, I'm trying to fucking walk here, Jesus fucking Christ. Get out of my way, sheep." Santana pushed the dumb asses in front of her to either side, only realizing what they had been saying when she looked down and saw Rachel laying there in a dress that was covered in dried slushy, blood slowly falling out from under her head.
She squatted down, pressing her fingers to her teammate's pulse point. When the other girl's heartbeat thrummed against her fingers, she sighed out her relief and pulled her phone from her bra, quickly tapping in 911. As she pressed call, she stood up, already starting to push the people surround she and Rachel away.
Get the fuck away from her you god damned assholes! I bet none of you even called an ambulance. He dicho vaya, apagado carajo!" ("I said go, fuck off!") The crowd finally began to dissipate, clearly understanding the familiar rage in her tone, some with confused faces over what the hell she'd just said,, Santana turned around and motioned for the rest of the students coming toward the door to take another exit, shutting the set of doors behind her closed. There were another two sets of doors that made up the main entrance of the school, so it wasn't like no one would see Rachel, but at least they wouldn't be right on top of them.
"Lima police, fire, rescue, do you have an emergency?"
"Yea, I do." Santana felt like she'd been waiting for like five minutes, thank god they'd answered the phone. She didn't want to risk moving the prone girl by having to drive her to the hospital.
"I just walked outside my school doors and I found a friend of mine on the ground, it looks like she came from the roof. Some of the other students were saying she jumped. She's breathing, but she's bleeding from her head and she's unconscious. I'm at the front entrance of McKinley high school. Do you, like, need me to stay on the phone or some shit?"
"Yes, please. Can I have your name?"
"Oh, yeah. I'm Santana Lopez. How long until they get here?" Santana stopped pacing and knelt by Rachel's side, reaching over to check her pulse one more time.
"They left as soon as you told me where you are, it should take them no more than ten to twelve minutes for them to reach you, Santana. Just stay calm, and inform me if you notice any changes to your friend's condition, alright."
"Yeah, okay, cool." Santana was more than worried about the blood that she had managed to step in when she'd knelt next to Rachel to check her pulse a minute ago. She wasn't sure how difficult it would be to clean blood off of her trainers, but that was literally the last thing she was worried about.
"You'll be okay, Berry. Help is totally on the way, and you'll be up and bossing all of us around about regionals plans in no time. But fuck, what happened? Did you really jump? Why would you do something like that?: The Latina looked up and to the road headed west, which she could already hear the siren coming from. The sound continued coming closer until the ambulance was finally pulling into the parking lot and stopping a good fifteen feet from her. She stood up and backed away, putting yer phone to her ear.
"Hey, they're here. Thanks for helping."
"No problem, Santana. I was glad to help, I hope your friend get's better, goodbye."
"Yeah, me too." The paramedics hopped out of the back of the ambulance with a stretcher, one of them kneeling down to do a quick check of Rachel's pulse and what not. The woman slipped a brace around the singer's neck before she was slid onto a support and then lifted onto the gurney. Another one the paramedics turned to her really quickly while Rachel was slid into the ambulance.
"Are you Santana? Can you tell me what might have happened?"
"Yea, that's me. She fell, or jumped, or something, off of the roof right there. I'm not sure what happened. I got here after the fact, and there were kids surrounding her but no one had called for help." The woman frowned, before gesturing to the vehicle where Santana could see people moving around inside checking on Rachel.
"Did you want to come along with her?"
"Yeah, but I don't want to get in your way, I'll hop in my car and be right behind you." The emt nodded and slid into the back of the ambulance while Santana sprinted to her car and slid in, starting it up and pulling out of the parking lot to get on her way to the hospital. The ambulance was in front of her for now, but she knew it would get further ahead with those loud and traffic clearing sirens.
It took her twenty plus minutes to reach the hospital, and she hopped out at valet, being quick about handing over her keys and paying for her car to be parked so she could go to the emergency desk and ask about her fallen "friend".
"Hello, how may I help you?"
"I'm looking for Rachel Berry. She'll have been brought in by an ambulance a few minutes ago? Can you tell me what's going on?"
"Are you the girl that called in for her?" The nurse looked at her computer and then back "Santana Lopez?"
"Yeah. Yeah, that's me. Are they already taking care of her? They couldn't have brought her in more than ten minutes ago. I don't think I was too far behind them."
"Ten minutes more or less. They just finished taking x-rays. She has a pretty serious head wound, concussion, and transverse fractures in her leg." Santana nodded, squeezing her left fist tight around her keys. So Rachel was okay, kind of. She should probably see if the hospital already had the information to call her fathers and had already done so, or if she should do it herself somehow. She obviously didn't have their numbers and she didn't know anyone who did. Then again, because Rachel was so thorough she did have the diva's land line number. Not that she would ever understand why anyone would still have a land in 2011, but whatever. She could call that, and maybe they would answer, if not she'd have to figure something else out.
"Have you already called her parents?" The nurse grimaced, shaking her head.
"It seems Miss Berry has been here before for dance injuries, but the numbers in the files went unanswered. We think they may have changed them, and Neither Leroy nor Hiram Berry are in the phone book. She didn't come in with her phone on her person either, so there's no way for us to contact them. Are you able to?"
"I have their land line. I'll call." The nurse nodded with a small sad smile and turned back to her computer while Santana walked away towards an area with some seating. She sat down and pulled her phone from her pocket, swiping to unlock it and then pressing on the contact icon. Actually it was weird that she even had this number. Like really, when did Berry think she was going to have to call her land line? Whatever, she pressed the number after having scrolled though to find it, putting her phone up against her ear and breathing deeply to calm herself.
"Hello, Berry Residence. This is Hiram, how may I help you?" The seated girl licked her lips and sighed this whole fucking situation sucked.
"Hi Mr. Berry, this is Santana. I'm a friend of Rachel's. I'm at St. Rita's right now, there's been an accident." She heard him scream out a frantic sounding 'Leroy' before he was back to talk to her again.
"Oh no, my baby girl, is she okay? Is she...what happened...I mean..."
"She's okay, just hurt. You should get up here as soon as possible though, sir. I'll be here when you do."
"O...Okay thank you. We'll be there soon." The line disconnected then, and Santana ran a hand through her hair, closing her eyes in an attempt to...she didn't know, focus. After they got the medical information from the nurse, they'd be asking her all the questions pertaining to what actually happened to cause Rachel's injuries. She didn't even know what had happened herself.
She couldn't help but think that Rachel hadn't tried to kill herself. That just didn't seem like the girl she kind of didn't really know all that well to be honest. But she felt she knew her enough to know she wouldn't do that. If there was a list of things that Santana thought Rachel was, quitter wasn't on it. Not that she exactly thought that people that felt suicide was the answer to their problems were quitters. Just that...well, Rachel Berry was the poster girl for perseverance over any and all obstacles in her well-planned path towards Broadway mega stardom. So if what she thought was true, and Rachel hadn't thrown herself over the edge of the school's roof, what the hell had she been doing up there anyway?
Not that she herself hadn't been up there many a time to smoke or make out during school hours back when she was into or more astutely pretended to be into that. She even remembered Puck had put that old stupid rickety chair up there. He'd sit in the chair and she in his lap, passing joints or his flask back and forth between them. It had been good times really. He was the nicest guy she'd ever been with.
Finally standing and shaking her head free of old memories, Santana walked back up to the emergency desk to speak with the young nurse who looked up when she set her arms on the wooden counter top.
"Were you able to get in touch with the Berrys?"
"Yeah. They're on their way. Any new information? Is she awake? Can I see her?"
"She is awake, but groggy, and in pain. And yes, you can go see her, though we'll be moving her to a room up a few floors within the next hour or two. I'll send her fathers in when they get here. Trauma room 6, Santana." The Latina nodded and walked away from the desk, still squeezing her left fist around her keys as she walked down the hallways with partitioned off but not walled off rooms. When she came to six she pushed the curtain away enough to slip inside, her eyes immediately taking in all of the prone woman before her.
Her left leg was elevated and in some kind of brace like thing, her head was wrapped in gauze, brunette hair falling out from underneath the white bandaging. They had an IV in her right arm as well. She looked up when she heard the footsteps, her gaze locking onto Santana's own immediately.
"Santana? What..."
"Hey, Berry. I know you're in a little pain since they can't give you anything too heavy right now, but how do you feel?" She grabbed the chair closer to the curtain that the bed and picked it up, moving it over to set down on Rachel's left side before sitting down in it and gently grabbing Rachel's hand to give it a quick squeeze before letting go.
"It hurts, and I'm so tired, but they won't let me sleep at all. I don't really understand what happened." Rachel said, the frown that had been present since Santana showed up deepening even more.
"You don't? Shit. What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was sitting on the roof of the school. It was really cold outside. My dress...my dress was tie dye? No...it was slushy. I got slushied and I didn't have anywhere else to go. I got up to get ready to go home but I...I think I slipped on some ice and I remember falling and I woke up here."
Not that she hadn't seen the previously white dress when she first found Rachel, and not that she wasn't aware of what it meant, but hearing that she'd been slushied again after the last time she, Quinn, and Britt had laid down the law to Glee's football players that it was their job to take care of this shit just made her angry. She'd heard of some random freshman being slushied by the hockey team, but the gleeks had been left alone entirely up until today apparently. And seriously, that dress had been covered in at least six colors which meant three guys if not more cornering and essentially assaulting a hobbit sized girl who had barely ever done anything truly wrong in her life. If the boys couldn't take care of their job, then she would. You know what they say. If you want something done right...
"Okay, well I guess I can fill in some blanks for you. When I was leaving the school you were on the ground and kids were surrounding you, saying stupid shit and taking photos, laughing like idiots so I got them to go away, checked your pulse and called the ambulance. I protected you until they showed up and I followed them here. I called your dads just a little while ago so they should be here soon.
"What were they saying?"
"Your dad's? I only talked to one of them. Hiram. He called you his baby girl and he seemed really worried."
"No. The other students who you said were surrounding me. You said they were saying stupid things. What do you mean?" Santana sighed, pulling herself and the chair closer.
"They were...those idiots were saying that you jumped. That you tried to kill yourself. And, I'm sorry, but I didn't know what happened at first. I just saw you laying there bleeding and I didn't know what to think. But after I knew you were okay I thought about it and I knew you wouldn't do that, Rachel. I've never known you to give up when faced with any damn thing. Honestly, I used to think it was annoying, but now, I think it's one of the things I like most about you. You work hard, you always try, and you never let anything make you doubt your ability push forward."
"Santana, I don't give up because I can't. It isn't courageous. It's cowardly if it's anything. I wish that I could give up. Or at least have a choice beyond what song to sing and what flavor of tea to drink before bed. But I won't. Not until May, at the earliest." Santana's brows furrowed above her dark eyes as they locked back on the bed bound girl's from where she'd been taking a quick look at her bandages. What did all of that mean? She wished she could give up? She wanted to be able to make decisions and wouldn't until...May. They graduated in May.
"Tell me what you mean, Rachel." She all but demanded, wrapping her fingers around the other brunette's once again, this time with no real plan of letting go.
"My fathers, they..." Whatever the rest of her sentence was going to be it ended when two worried looking men opened the curtain closing Rachel and Santana off of the rest of the world and stepped inside the room. She stood up, walking to the other side of the bed to stand so her father could stand on the side with the chair. Gently, careful of the IV in her wrist, the Latina, wrapped her fingers around the small hand.
"Rachel, my baby! Are you okay? We were so worried when your friend called us, we rushed right over. What happened?" Rachel swallowed, her eyes jetting over to Santana's for the shortest moment before they went back to her fathers.
"I slipped...and I fell off of the roof of the school." She seemed to kind of flinch a little as she said it, squeezing the hand in hers reflexively.
"The roof! Rachela what were you doing on the roof?! You know it's icy out. Not to mention cold! You know better than to be out in this weather unnecessarily. You know what it can do your vocal folds! And now look at your leg, Rachel. How are you supposed to continue your dance classes. By the time your leg is back to normal you'll be behind and it'll take even more time to catch up. I can't help but wonder what made you think any of this was a good idea!" Hiram Berry ranted this out at twice the speed she'd previously mentally clocked Rachel at, and Santana went back through the statement, searching for some kind of concern for the diva's well being. Nothing came up, and it only made her wonder why neither of the girl's fathers had asked why she'd been up there in the first place. Something she kind of couldn't help wondering for herself.
Rachel had said before that she had no where else to go, but couldn't she have just gone home? Both men were there when she called, so they'd have been there before most probably. And shit, even if they weren't, they were seventeen, it wasn't a big deal.
"Maybe it wasn't a good idea, but it was my only idea, daddy. I got slushied, okay. Six boys more than twice my size surrounded me outside the auditorium and assaulted me with iced drinks. Do you want to know what they said? They said 'We thought you'd like to taste the rainbow, fag spawn.' So excuse me if I didn't want to ruin my car with all of that slush, or walk all the way home early just to have to listen to dad berate me for skipping classes and putting my academics second to my own personal comfort for once." Okay, whoa. Things were obviously far less hunky dory in the Berry house than she'd always both thought and been led to think.
"Rachel we thought you said they'd stopped doing that?"
"Yes, well they haven't. It's the hockey team now, and they slushied me yesterday too. I kept my kit in my locker just in case and I got hit three times yesterday so I had to wash everything and didn't have time to pack another."
"Wait, you got slushied yesterday? Why didn't you say anything?" Santana hadn't heard of anything about that.
"I didn't want to bother you or Quinn since I figured out it was only me."
"Rachel...we can only help if you tell us. The guys, who were they?" She was going to finally show McKinley the kind of leader she really was. The fools were about to be made an example of.
"I...don't know. Rick Nelson was the one who said...what I mentioned earlier." Santana snarled.
"The stick? That asshole? Oh he's just asking for a real Lima heights ass kicking. Imma serve it up. When I say off limits I mean fucking off limits. You ain't gonna have to worry about it again." Damn straight. Both she and Quinn, not to mention the guys, had already had 'conversations' with him about slushying the glee club, she was sure his nuts still remembered her trainers.
"Santana, no. He's a big guy, I don't want you to get hurt just because of me." The Latina found she had a bit of a problem with the way the other girl said that.
"I don't care how big he is. I laid down the law and he broke it. There're repercussions to that and you know it. If it's him that's leading all of those idiots in slushying all those freshman and whatnot then it's a secondary bird with this one stone." The Latina raised her left fist. Fuck yea. She'd graduate having gotten ridden of slushies entirely. It'd be like a complete 180 from freshman and sophomore year.
"Okay, if you insist. Just...be careful, please. And if through some set of circumstances your plan isn't effective, perhaps it's time I took legal action against Principal Figgins and the school district for continually ignoring my complaints about the violence at McKinley." Santana nodded. Her plan wouldn't fail. Probably. But taking things from another angle couldn't hurt. As she looked up to catch Leroy Berry step around his husband to be closer to his daughter Santana started to realize that neither she or Rachel had paid any attention to the two men for at least a good ten minutes.
"Legal action sounds like it may be a good idea. I'll contact our lawyer to draw up some plans and then we'll speak with Figgins. However, Santana, is it? It may be prudent for you to leave this Rick boy alone while we deal with this officially. If we end up needing to press charges against him it may hinder the case if you've also assaulted him." Oh, well look she liked this dad even less than the other.
"Okay, first of all, yeah. It is Santana. Which you know, because your daughter said my name like fifteen seconds ago. Second, don't tell me what to do. Third, please rectify your logic. How does me stomping the shit outta this asshole affect a potential case centered around the assault of Rachel for which I was not present? Unless I was an idiot, which I'm not, and went and said 'hey, stupid, I'm pretty fucking sure I told you to leave the glee kids alone and you fucked that up by throwing a slushie at my friend, Rachel Barbra Berry. The beating I'm about to apply to your face is a direct consequence to that action." Rachel's eyes had kind of maybe asked her not to do that before she'd began speaking but the way Leroy had opened his sentence by talking to her as if she was completely irrelevant to this situation in which she had potentially saved his daughter's life pissed her off.
She looked down at Rachel, who'd squeezed her hand way tighter than she had been doing pretty normally every once in a while as if to solidify their physical connection. The smaller girl was grimacing in pretty obvious pain and she frowned in worry.
"Hey, give me a sec, I'll page the nurse, kay?" She reached behind her to grab the little connected remote thing and pressed the nurse button. The static heavy sounds came through a second later.
"Hi, how can I help?"
"Hey, I think her meds are wearing off, she's in some pretty legit pain. Is she allowed to have more right now?"
"Yes, someone will be in in just a moment." Santana nodded when the intercom cut off, turning back to Rachel, who had a couple tears leaking down the side of her face to land on her lips. Santana reached to wipe them away, frowning pretty deeply while they waited.
"Hey, you're okay. They'll be here in a second. What is it, headache? Your leg?"
"Headache. Never had one this bad before." She moaned softly, both of her fathers quietly talking amongst each other while she dealt with helping their daughter. Fuckers.
"I'm sorry, I'm gonna tilt your bed up and see if I can help. I once read something about tbi headaches sometimes being cervicogenic. I'm sure it's also actually in your head as well, but I can't help that with the exception of getting you those meds. The former though, I should be able to help by massaging your neck." So what. She read a lot. Her mother's library was full of medical books focusing on headaches and the brain in general, being a neurologist. Not that she ever wanted to be a doctor. Not with the way that it seemed to affect ones ability or even desire to spend time with family. She didn't want to be like them when she had kids. She wanted to be there as much as possible while also earning the money to provide for them. A happy medium she was determined to achieve. She pulled her Letterman jacket off and set it at the foot of the bed, rubbing her hands together to warm them before stepping closer.
"Thank you." Santana hopped up to sit on the edge of the bed once it was in position.
"No problem, Rachel. Okay now sit up just a tiny bit, but don't move your neck, I'll support you." Rachel did so, being careful not to move her neck or shoulders. Once she was steady against Santana's chest, the Latina slipped her hands inside the diva's hospital gown, carefully rubbing at the lean muscles to work out what felt like seriously painful knots and an overlying tension. Halfway through the massage the nurse walked in with the pill in one of those little paper cups. She took the pills before the nurse left again then looked over to the table with the water on it, lithely stretching her leg out to snag it with her sneaker, which she noticed was partially covered in Rachel's dried blood. She pulled the tray in and poured a cup of water before extending the hand with the pill for Rachel to open up for, following it with helping her swallow down the full cup of water.
"Need any more? I know you're supposed to keep hydrated or something with all this cold dry air in winter.
"Yes, please. Thank you, by the way. Your help has been indispensable. I truly do appreciate it." Rachel spoke while Santana poured more water.
"Here, take it with your free hand, I'll get back to work. Is it helping?"
"Definitely."
"My hands are awesome. Anyway, You hungry? We've been here for a good hour and a half. I'm not sure that St. Rita's has anything substantial that's vegan but maybe your father's could actually be useful by getting you something to chow on, right?" The more they ignored Rachel the more Santana's disdain for them turned into legitimate anger. She was about sixty seconds from going off on those two inconsiderate jackasses.
"Santana...please. It's okay." The diva's nearly always expressive eyes just looked tired. And really, she understood that. She was dealing with these two men for the first time and for less than two hours. Rachel fought this battle every day.
"It's not okay. But you're right. It's stupid of me to act like this. This is your life. I can't just show up one day and be pissed at what you have to deal with. It just...sucks." The other girl giggled, the first sign that her pain medication was dulling or erasing the probable migraine she'd been plagued with.
"It does suck. But I won't have to deal with it for much longer. It's February."
"Three months. Right." closing the top button on Rachel's gown, she carefully lay her back to her bed, deciding to stay sitting in the decent amount of space she had on the side of it with her feet supported by the non-moving parts under the mattress.
"Yep. Since you mentioned it, however. I am hungry. Perhaps they have vegetable broth or plain oatmeal with no butter or french fries."
"You want fries? I'll get you fries. You know, as long as you share. What else do you want? You gonna drink water or do you want some tea or something?"
"I would love fries. And water is fine. You intend to order them from the hospital?"
"Yeah right. The fries here totally suck. I'm gonna call Q and tell her to bring us five guys. You sure you don't need or want anything else?"
"No. But can you ask Quinn if...what the rumor mill sounds like as far as my fall? I don't...it would be nice if I don't have to deal with everyone telling me they wish I had succeeded or something every time i have to walk down the halls. But if it's inevitable I would at least like to prepare myself for it."
"I'll ask her, but you don't have to worry about that. We'll take care of it." Santana pulled her phone from her bra, quickly typing up the text requesting a ridiculous amount of fries and a status check on the grapevine. Around thirty seconds later a new text box popped up.
Q - It's not good.
Snixx - Like not good the whole school knows and we have to worry about wide scale bullying or...?
Q - It's not good as in the entire town knows. It may or may not be on the local news right now.
Snixx - WHAT?!
A Second later her phone was ringing and she was walking out the hospital room after patting Rachel gently on the arm.
"Fuck, Quinn what the hell am I gonna do? I don't know how to protect her from the whole town!" She squeezed her free right hand into a fist, pacing across the hallway, every once and a while sticking her head in the curtain to make sure Hiram and Leroy weren't bothering Rachel.
"I'm not sure that you can, Santana. I can tell how much you want to white knight for her but it's just not plausible. I'm sorry."
"No Q, this isn't some bullshit damsel in distress situation! God she didn't even do this shit. I mean she just slipped off the fucking roof. How fucked up is this? Mierda, if Karma exists that shit is back asswards. If this should have happened to anyone it should have been one of us instead of her for a dozen reasons." Her closest friend's subdued 'yeah' was answer enough.
"Things never seem to work out the way they should though, S. What's the plan?"
"I really don't know. I kind of just want to go on the offensive but I'm afraid it would only make it worse if I ran around shouting that she was off limits and crushing anyone who even looked at her the wrong way." She could hear the sound of a car door slamming through Quinn's phone, she must be at the five guys.
"It would make it worse in some ways. I have an Idea. You definitely aren't going to like it though."
"Yeah, well seeing as our viable options are all but nonexistent I want to hear it anyway."
"I think the best plan of action would be for her to leave. To transfer somewhere far enough will no one will ever know."
"Yeah, well, you were right. I don't like that idea. I need to go talk to her. I'll see you when you get here. Don't forget ketchup."
"I'll see you both soon." the call disconnected and Santana squeezed her eyes shut tight for just a second before she slipped in past the curtain to sit back down on the side of Rachel's bed. The diva looked up at her, eyes vulnerable with her fear of what she realized might as well have been the inevitability of the torment that was going to come her way from her fellow students.
"So how bad is it?"
"It's bad, Rachel. Q said the whole town knows. And it's on the five o'clock news. I'm sorry."
"It's...they put it on the news?" Her eyes seemed to well up with tears almost instantly , and Santana really didn't exactly know what to do to help. There was nothing she could say or do that would change the situation.
"Yeah. Quinn had an Idea that I should probably run by you. She said it might be a good idea for you to transfer to another school for the last few months before graduation. Somewhere will no one will hear what happened. What do you think?"
"Transferring? To another school? I...don't know." The first of those tears fell over Rachel's defined cheekbones, and Santana sat there, watching her cry silently. She was out of her depth with this entire situation, and was well aware of that fact.
"Yo I get it." She said softly, scooping the diva's hand up into her own.
"It's a lot to think about let alone the amount of paperwork it'd come with. But I think it might not be a terrible idea, Rachel. And that's coming from me. You should know how I feel about running away from any problem I can solve with my fists."
"Yeah." The soft giggle Rachel loosed made her squeeze the girl's hand. Maybe after they finished talking about this it may be a good idea to watch a comedy or something on the hospitals horrible excuse for a tv. Really, she just couldn't watch Rachel cry anymore. The only times she'd ever seen her do so the issue surrounding it involved Finn. Except for the time after Shuester had announced the set list for sectionals and Rachel hadn't been chosen. She'd found the girl in the second floor bathroom bawling her eyes out in the furthest stall, mumbling to herself words she couldn't put together due to both distance and the lack of Rachel's usual enunciation. It was becoming easier for to figure out what that had been about now that she'd met the 'men' known as the Berrys.
"And, you know maybe you could even transfer to a school in New York. Move to the city three months early. You're already eighteen so It wouldn't be a big deal, really. Or you could test out? Isn't that something people do? I saw it in a movie once."
"I hadn't considered those options before, but they seem...plausible." The Latina tilted her head, squeezing the hand she held captive. Plausible? Really?
"But...?" Rachel bit down on her lips, squirming around like she was suddenly uncomfortable. She motioned her head over to the Hiram and Leroy standing on the other side of the small room that Santana just remembered they were supposed to be moving out of pretty soon.
"Hey, yo, Berrys. I think the nurse told me something about the hospital needing to have that medical history questionnaire filled out since it's been a while since you three were here. You should both probably take care of that and see when they're moving her into a room for the night." Nodding, but still quietly conversing amongst their rude selves, the two men walked past the curtain, leaving the two girls together.
"Thank you, Santana."
"Whatever, it's no big deal. It's obvious they make you uncomfortable in some way. Anyway, you know I'll help you whenever you need me. To help, I mean. So what's the deal?" She was so ridiculous. Every once and a while it felt like she was watching herself say the stupidest shit without any control over her traitorous mouth.
"I'm just not sure I like the idea of having to leave just because of a freak black ice accident. Truly, I did nothing wrong. No matter how difficult things often are, I didn't try to kill myself. I wouldn't. And it just makes me legitimately sick that people treat this incident the way they are and will continue to. If I had actually tried to kill myself, how damaging would it be walk into that school and have seventy five percent of the people who would speak to me laugh in my face or tell me they wish I'd succeeded? And then walk into glee and here about how I did it for attention? I just don't understand. I would understand the comments from glee, no matter how insensitive they would be at the time. But what have I done to make so many people hate me so fiercely?"
"You haven't done anything, Rachel. They're sheep. They follow orders. And I ordered for everyone to hate you or risk becoming you." The blonde who had arrive without either of them noticing said, setting a bag full of hot fries on the foot of the bed in front of her.
"But why. I've never understood it. One day you were just the pretty blonde girl in the cheerios uniform that I saw everyday on my way to class and then the next you were calling me ru paul and ordering slushies and I was a social pariah. What did I do?"
Santana was just as curious as to what had flipped a switch in her captain's head to make her begin to smell blood in the water whenever the adorable but loud mouthed brunette in pretty dresses was around. One day, Quinn had laid down the law. Santana was the blonde's right hand so she stated her objections privately, away from the girls, but did her job when Quinn insisted, throwing the first slushy.
"You were pretty, well dressed, you had parents who cared, you were proud of the family you had. You were happy. Your life was everything I wanted and knew I could never have. But then it changed and I found myself watching you, studying you. Looking for something that would prove to me that you weren't as perfect as I thought you were. One day, I got caught watching you combing your hair in your mirror. You were doing that cute thing where you stand on your toes and put your hand behind your back to reach the ends of your hair and I was just standing there like an oblivious idiot, grinning, watching you smile when you thought your hair was satisfactory and the head cheerio...she caught me. Haley Cole...She asked me what I was doing watching you in less polite words and I didn't know what to say so I said something about you combing your hair like it would make you look less like a man and she bought it. And then it was a thing and there was Ru Paul and it stuck. Later, I was head cheerio and there was even more pressure to hide how I felt about you and make sure I insulted you, so I made it an edict and...that's how it started." The story started off sounding insensitive, and slowly changed to Quinn sounding still smitten over Rachel's admittedly adorable hair grooming habit.
Shit, Quinn had been...was? Into Rachel. That was the start of all that bullshit? Santana herself had followed orders and basically terrorized her first because of orders and then because of jealousy and a twisted desire to make herself better. It took only seconds for her anger to overwhelm her, and she squeezed Rachel's hand tighter than she had before, slipping off the bed, a sneer twisted her lips into an image she'd been forced to wear far too often. She reached into her pocket and pulled out twenty dollars, tossing it at Quinn and stepping as close as she could without free use of her left hand. Rachel seemed pretty reluctant to let it go. Which she was fine with. Maybe it would help ground her and she wouldn't end up messing up the blonde's stupid pretty face. She watched the blonde catch the cash out the air with a confused look on her face.
"What is-"
"Thanks for the fries. Get out." The confused look fell into comprehension and then raw hurt, defeat mixing in to it. Santana heard Rachel's bed tilting up so she could sit up further and see what had and was about to happen.
"I'm so sorry." The blonde choked out, tears already falling over her lips.
"Oh? What are you sorry about, Quinnie? Treating Rachel like dog shit you accidentally stepped in because of your shit? Convincing the entire school to do the same on top of that? Huh? Lying to me? Forcing me to be the one to land the first real blow because you couldn't fucking do it yourself?! God, do you know how I felt afterwards? Fucking subhuman, Quinn! My slushying Rachel was the first and last time she ever cried in public about the shit we did to her. I can't even stand to see her or any girl cry any more. But you...you deserve this feeling. Just do it somewhere else. Get. Out."
Shit, Santana felt like she was gonna cry now. She deserved it too, though, for all she'd done. Sure, Quinn had pushed her (hard) into to it, but eventually she had taken to bullying Rachel and others. Even enjoyed it sometimes. What did that say about her? Quinn looked back up and apologized one more time to Rachel who only responded with a nod, before finally turning around and leaving past the curtain. Santana waited a few moments until she was sure Quinn was gone before she left the small room herself and collapsed into the chair that was sitting against the wall in the hallway, her head in her hands as she sobbed.
She couldn't help but think about it given the initial situation that had brought them here and the fact that she had heard it from every person surrounding Rachel after she'd fallen. The girl hadn't tried to kill herself, she knew that. But how many slushies or insults or questions about what she was packing between her thighs could Rachel take before the thought of doing exactly that became an option? And what about what everyone in the town and at school would be saying for god knows how long?
"Hey, everything's okay, Santana. Come back in here, alright? I wanted to hug you but I probably shouldn't get up." Santana looked up at her, shaking her head, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes harshly before she stood up.
"I hate her." She managed to whimper out weakly, walking forward enough to fall into Rachel's still open arms.
"You don't hate her, Santana. She's your best friend, you love her. I understand how completely livid you are given the circumstances, but what did you expect her to say? What reason for her behavior could she have given either of us that would have made this in any form okay? There isn't one. Yes, she forced you at first. Yes, she certainly lied to you, but the same is true regardless of the specifics of why she did what she did. What I'm saying is...don't throw away a five year friendship over me." The Latina just sighed into Rachel's collar bone, her very serious dislike for the way Rachel spoke about herself as if she was hardly worth the trouble at all being overridden by the factual knowledge that she didn't have the right to speak about that subject. She'd had a heavy hand in destroying the sense of self worth that the injured girl had previously had.
"Maybe I can't really hate her no matter how much I wish I could, but I can't ever trust her again. She lied to me, manipulated me, used me to hurt you just to keep herself in the closet about the fact that she's obviously not straight and also about her feelings for you."
"I'm sorry, you're right." Santana stepped back and pressed her left thumb into the palm of her right hand in soothing circles. A nervous habit the Latina had previously thought she'd gotten rid of last year.
"No, damn. I'm sorry. I'm like all over you and shit." Rachel just shrugged, rolling her shoulders afterward in what seemed to be a test of how much pain was still sticking around.
"It's fine, Santana. I'm the one who offered, remembered? You looked like you could use the emotional support. Plus, you know how I am about hugs. Getting a free one, and from you, is always a bonus, alright? Worry not." Santana just nodded weakly, feeling the need to sit down but knowing at the same time that what she was considering saying was better said face to face as they currently were.
"So, I really kind of hate to try and apologize to you like me doing that is going to change anything, or take back the effect the bullying I did myself and facilitated in others, but... I am sorry, Rachel. So sorry. If I could go back and change it I would."
"I appreciate the apology, Santana. And regardless of the fact that it can't change what has happened to me in that school at the hands of Quinn and yourself, not the mention the rest of the population, it's still something that's worth hearing. And you probably can't go back and change it anytime soon. Last time I spoke to Brittany she told me that her time machine prototype definitely wouldn't be done by the time we graduated, and then she'd have even less time to work on it after leaving for Massachussets. So who even knows when it will be done. Plus you know, there are obviously concerns with time travel and it's affect on future. Not to mention the possibility of a paradox and a potential rip in the space time continuum, if science fiction is to be believed on any level. With all of that in mind, I think it's better that we live with things as they are and try to be better moving forward."
Santana just gaped at her as soon as she started speaking about the time machine that she had often sat down and helped Britt work on the only way she could. Handing her tools, reporting readings she couldn't understand, and bringing the blonde snacks and drinks when she thought she should probably stop working long enough to eat or drink. Honestly, she wasn't sure it was even legit, or how the hell it would work if it was, for gods sake. Still, since when had Britt and Rachel been talking about that together? Or talking at all beyond the general friendliness Britt displayed everyone she liked?
"Okay, what? You actually believe the thing will work?" That seemed a better question to ask than the other, which was when the hell had she and Britt become actual friends or whatever they were. Wasn't that kind of a fucked up question to ask a person who had so little friends due to her in large part?
"Of course I do. Brittany says she's sure it'll work when it's finished, and after that it's about being able to fine tune it so whoever uses the machine doesn't get sent somewhere they don't desire. And then there's the matter of a mobile return device, which she has plans for and has just begun working on. The science that she explained to me seems sound. Or at least that which I could understand. More than I would care for went over my head, so I've been reading up, and she never minds taking the time to teach me more about the subject when she isn't working or spending time with you."
Santana frowned, how much had Brittany and Rachel hidden from her? Not that it would take much of anything for Rachel to hide anything from her. They rarely if ever spent time around each other if it wasn't in school or glee club related. In fact Santana truly couldn't remember a single instance in which they'd ever been alone together. The more important question was why they thought they had to hide from her, unless this had been going on longer than she thought, in which case she understood.
"How long have the two of you been friends?"
"Since we started dance together when Brittany moved to town in second grade. I had been the best dancer in the class until that point. The star, like my fathers wanted. She came into the first class and blew Mrs. Nouveau away with her natural grasp of movement. She was amazing and I was more than a little star struck by her, really. She was tall, blonde, beautiful, everything I even then wished I could be. We became friends immediately, you know. That's how she is, really. She said I was small, adorable, and loud. I had a crush on her. Something I hadn't ever really experienced before."
"Britt was your first crush?" Santana could understand that.
"She has been all of my firsts, actually." What?
"I'm sorry, what?" Did Britt and Rachel sleep together?
"First friend, first crush, first kiss, first love. And even more. She's the only person outside of my family who has ever cared about me. She's important to me." Rachel's usually clear tone and typically decently loud voice softened off into quiet and soft as she continued. And it wasn't only the words which had been a shock to Santana's system to hear but also Rachel's tone which made her stumble backwards into the chair that she'd been sitting in before.
"Oh..."
"I'm sorry. Don't blame her for the fact that all of this has been unknown to you until now. Once the two of you became friends at that cheer camp with Quinn I explained to her that I had to back off. She fought me on it at first, but eventually I managed to convince her that it was best for her to let me go. Although you hadn't ever picked on me before I'd seen you around school hanging with the really popular kids. I'd already heard horrible things about the way the cheerios behaved at McKinley and I didn't want to make things worse for myself or even worse have the two of you pick on her. So I had a really horrible freshman year without her, not to mention all the bullying that I knew would happen. But I was okay, because you and Quinn, despite the way you treated me, protected Brittany, and that was more important to me than anything else. Then the next year the three of you joined glee club because I found myself interested in Finn and his leading man potential."
Shit. What an overload of information. Sure she had only met Britt when they were freshly fourteen, but she thought they were best friends. Lying to each other wasn't something best friends did. Now she was finding out that both of "best friends" had been lying to her, keeping things from her for years. God, this was so fucked up... They were her only real family, her two blondes. Being lied to like this wasn't something she'd be able to overcome easily. However, Rachel was right, blaming Britt for what hadn't been her idea would be wrong, but she knew there would be no way to keep this from affecting their friendship in a pretty major way.
"Fuck!" was all she could manage to get out, tears once again filling her eyes. All she could think to was put her head in her hands and let them fall. She heard Rachel sigh and then a moment later quick footsteps outside the room before the swishing of the curtain caught her attention as someone stormed in. Santana looked up without wiping her eyes when she recognized the voice.
"Rachel! Oh, thank god you're okay. I was so worried you can't even imagine! You didn't show up at dance and I know you'd never actually skip it no matter how much you want to sometimes. Then you didn't answer your phone...I didn't want to call Leroy and Hiram. I didn't know what to do. But then Quinn called me and interrupted me in the middle of my pacing, told me you fell, told me you were here and you were hurt but okay so I rushed over. Q said you're okay, but are you? Do you need me to do anything? How can I help?"
Santana watched as the previous melancholy that had inhabited Rachel's eyes seemed to melt away, replaced with overwhelming affection and unmistakable love. The next second Brittany had her arms around the small brunette rocking her gently and and sneaking her hand between the girl and the hospital bed, rubbing her back. The entire thing made Santana sick to her stomach so she stood, watching as Britt turned, leaving her right arm around Rachel's back anyway.
"San? What are you doing here?" She didn't exactly look guilty, but the look in her eyes wasn't entirely innocent either. It seemed from the Latina's perspective that she felt justified in her decision to hide this from her. And maybe she was in some ways but not in others. At least it wasn't as bad as Quinn. What Brittany had kept from her hadn't caused her to hurt anyone, but maybe it had kept her from keeping someone, namely Rachel, from getting hurt. She had to believe that if she'd known the other brunette was Britt's best friend she wouldn't have done what she had.
"You know what, Britt. That's a good question. I think I'm gonna dip." Rachel's eyebrow's furrowed over her eyes and she frowned, burrowing her head a bit into Brittany's chest.
"But why? I...I really liked having you here. You got my dads to go away, you rubbed my back to help get rid of my headache, and you've been so nice to me. I like the version of you I got to spend time with today. It felt like we were friends. But if you really have to go...I understand, I'm sure you've got more important things to do than to hang around someone like me." Santana went to speak, just able to stop herself from saying something she still knew she had no right to say when Brittany, who been rubbing Rachel's back in large circles, shifted to sit in front of her , raising her chin up to look into her eyes.
"There is nothing wrong with you. Santana would be lucky to be able to spend more time with someone like you. Anyone would be. Okay, ducky?" Rachel just nodded shyly, shooting her maple eyes over towards Santana afterward as if she expected the Latina to dispute that claim.
"She's right, Rachel. I was lucky to be able to spend as much time with you as I did, and if you need more help with those careless assholes masquerading around as your fathers then feel free to give me a call. I've got no problem coming over and giving them both a swift kick in the nads. And really, I don't have to go. God knows I've got nothing else to do and no one else to hang out with, but I learned some things today that really hurt me and I kind of just need some time to barricade myself in my room and cry it out." Brittany's shoulder's slumped and she pouted in that way that always signaled to Santana that she was most probably about to cry.
"San-" Said girl just raised her hand in a motion that clearly said stop.
"No, Brittany. You've been lying to me. Keeping things from me. You know how I feel about that and you still did it. I understand why, but that comprehension doesn't change the fact that it still really fucking hurts and I need time and space from you and I can't get that here with Rachel because you're her best friend, and she's yours. So...I'll go home where all I ever get is time and space and I'll deal with it alone like I always do. Rachel, if you need me, call. And you were right, we are friends." She smiled at the last words before she turned around and left through the curtain, already trying to figure out how she could maybe, somehow, eventually, pick up the pieces of her most cherished friendships and put them back together.