Warnings for small amounts of swearing. Slightly AU, on account of miscarriage.

She doesn't remember a lot of it, only that there was lots of blood and it was all over her legs and hands and arms.

She remembers trying to get it off, scrubbing and scratching and clawing at herself until she was sure the blood was gone, because the blood had to be gone, she had to get clean.

But she couldn't, she just stood there in front of the sink with the faucet pouring scalding hot water onto her arms (because her mother once told her that hot water is the best for washing; and it's probably the only piece of advice from her Quinn will ever follow).

She stood there for ages, and she's pretty sure she remembers screaming too, but the only thing she could hear then was water, water and the slight hiss of steam, hitting her skin.

He remembers more, because he can still replay it in his mind. He sees it, sees her screaming and the bathroom over flowing, and her just standing there, covered in dark red and scratches.

He remembers every single detail, every part of it, and he can never forget, it just plays in his mind, over and over and over.

(he wonders if she felt this way, when she first heard the news)

(he hates it)

The doctors tell her the news in hushed voices, so Quinn, of course, pays attention. That's what she does, she pays attention and smiles and nods and tries to forget about anything bad that ever happened to her. Those are the rules, and they've worked for so long, she doesn't even see a reason to disobey them anymore, just follow them and everything will be fine.

Her arms still have scars on them, but she tries not to look, because they're ugly and Quinn is many things but ugly, like Man Hands, isn't one of them.

She feels different too, then before. Not so much on the outside but on the inside. She feels like something is missing from her, she feels like she's empty, kind of hollow, she supposes.

There is one heartbeat where there should be two, one soul where there should be another, and sometimes Quinn isn't so sure she can pretend this didn't happen, not yet.

The number of times Finn visits her in the hospital she could count on one hand.

On the first one, he barely says anything, just sits next to her and stares at her. "Yes?" She asks, nonchalantly, but Finn only starts at the sound of her voice and goes back to gazing at her, frightened.

(she wonders what there is to be scared about, she's not a monster)

(is she? Quinn lives her life in gray areas, dark spaces and occasionally, sometimes, she wonders if she really is- if she killed her baby, if she's the reason, because she wasn't pretty enough, wasn't skinny enough, wasn't good enough, wasn't perfect enough. She thinks she could be- a monster, a terrible, ugly, wretched thing because she did, she killed her baby.)

He visits a few more times and they all go relatively like the first one, Finn has never been one for creativity and when he's scared his brain seems to shrink even more so.

But it changes on the fourth one, when Finn walks in and comes straight up to her. She raises an eyebrow and refrains herself from saying yes? like she did a month ago.

"Was it even mine?" He asks, more harshly then she had ever heard him speak before.

There is a pause where she flinches and her eyes harden. "Why would you ask me that?" She whispers, coldly.

But she doesn't deny it and Finn stands there for a minute (sixty seconds, she counted them out one by one so she wouldn't have to think about her answer, no no no no no) before he turns around and storms out.

Quinn would go and run after him, but it hurts to walk since-

Puck punches Finn.

It should be the other way around, he knows, but Finn walked out on her, and suddenly Finn isn't his best friend anymore, he's the enemy, he's his father, and so he walks up to Finn when he's at his locker talking to Berry and just punches him.

He doesn't really recall doing it, to tell you the truth, but he remembers Berry screaming and teachers milling to the scene and someone pulling him back, back, back but all he could see was red and all he could hear was her.

When she was younger, she used to have a lot of dolls. Baby dolls. She would play with them, pretend they were her children, she would care for them and do anything for them.

Quinn likes to think she would have been great as a mother.

Sometimes, when she replays what the doctors said in her mind, when she remembers how she was going to give up her baby to Mr. Schu's psycho wife...

sometimes, she's not so sure.

She thinks he would've been great as a father, though. She saw how he had cared for her, done everything he could have, did it in the only way he knew how, to help her. He did more than Finn ever could have.

She touches her stomach.

"Sorry." She whispers, to no one.

(she wants to say it to him and to the baby, but he hasn't visited her yet and well, the baby is, the baby is, the baby is)

"Sorry."

In some type of dream (when she is half asleep and half awake) Quinn sometimes imagines she was somewhere else.

Somewhere, anywhere, but here, Lima.

Quinn draws a map in her head, and she marks all the places she would go if she could ever find it in herself to leave this place, but sometimes, when she wakes up screaming because she can't get fucking clean, she looks out the window and thinks she'll never, ever get to.

The night he ends up taking her to the hospital, he had been going to tell her he loved her.

He ends up sitting next to her in an ambulance, alternating phrases, Wake up, I love you, I'm sorry, I love you, don't die, I love you.

"Quinn? Quinn!"

The doctors tell him, later.

There were more side effects to the surgeries then we realized.

"I'm so sorry," she cries. Her hands clutch at his shirt. "I wish I could change it."

You can't, the words hover on the tip of his tongue, he thinks them but doesn't say them.

You can't, but I wouldn't want you to, because I love you, there, I. Love. You. I love you, all of you, screw ups and fuck ups that we both are, I love you. It doesn't matter, nothing matters, except me and you and YOU and I love you and you can't leave me, so don't, okay? Don'tdon'tdon'tdon'tdon't.

"Quinn..." He whispers. "Oh god, Quinn."

(Three words, eight letters. Blood stains his t-shirt, he never notices.)

Quinn had been going to tell him: she would have named the baby Sarah, like he wanted. She would have named her Sarah Puckerman, if she had been brave enough.

(she would have had blue eyes and dark hair and long lashes like her father and Quinn would have sat her on her lap and he would have played her the guitar and Quinn had been going to tell him she loved him, if she had been brave enough- but she was too scared.)

Quinn dies, Puck lays flowers on her grave.

Nothing changes.

(three words, eight letters.)

fin.