Potter's Law states: The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely proportional to the subject's true value.
Translation: The more you are being scolded for 'something', the less important that 'something' is.
Disclaimer: Own not. Profit not. Sue not.
Rachel stared at the flickering television screen, bundled in a blanket, arms crossed low on her stomach. She wasn't really watching it, more like looking through it while her mind swirled with a million thoughts. Angry thoughts, too many for her to keep track of, all feeding the tension burning up her body. It was so late into the night that most people would call it 'early' and she couldn't sleep. Wouldn't sleep. Not until Quinn got home, because Quinn was the reason she was awake to begin with.
Her day had started out so well too – it had been nearly perfect, in fact. She'd woken up happy, snugly cocooned in Quinn's arms, and got to lay there and luxuriate in the blonde's presence for more than a few moments because Quinn didn't have to be at work at the crack of dawn for once. Later they'd had lunch together, a disgusting vendor hot dog for Quinn, a pre-packed vegan friendly meal for her. Best of all, it had been beautiful outside – the sky filled with big fluffy clouds, the temperature mild. Quinn looked amazing, as she always did, but especially that afternoon, she'd thought. The sun had caught in her hair and turned it into a bright golden flame that Rachel couldn't keep from touching.
It wasn't until evening that things went sour.
Quinn had promised her, promised, she would be at her side for the cast dinner – and she hadn't shown. So Rachel had sat, embarrassed, beside an empty chair all evening, her spirits completely squashed by the noticeable absence. From her perspective the evening was ruined, not because Quinn wasn't there, she was accustomed to going on her own, but because she'd been telling everyone that this time Quinn was coming. Her castmates were expecting to meet the mysterious blonde that had snared their lead's heart so thoroughly. Rachel spent so much time gushing over her and they had yet to meet her. The whole evening she'd been asked repeatedly about her girlfriend's whereabouts and she got so tired of seeing their sad eyes when she told them that Quinn, regretfully, would be unable to attend. Their sad, knowing, eyes had haunted her all night.
Because it certainly wasn't the first time Rachel had dated someone who couldn't be asked to show up and support her.
Then Paris, the wretched understudy Rachel fully considered to be her arch-nemesis, had sidled up to her and poured honeyed poison in her ear. She knew Quinn would never cheat on her, there was no way, but god, her imagination had taken the suggestion and run with it. The idea of Quinn being off with someone else, touching someone else, whispering those sweet things against ears that weren't hers, kissing someone else, it had fouled her mood beyond repair. Then she couldn't get away from the mental pictures, and the urge to strangle Paris had been so strong her fingers shook with it.
And none of it would have happened if Quinn had just kept her damn promise.
Rachel growled and crossed her arms over her chest, prepared to stay up all night and all day if she had to. She had so much to say and Quinn was going to hear every word of it.
The click of the lock turning drew her attention away from the sitcom she wasn't watching and a fresh wave of fury hit her as she shot a quick glance at the clock.
Four in the fucking morning.
Quinn eased the door open, trying to be quiet, and Rachel suppressed a snort. Stealth wouldn't save her this time. The agent moved inside, her movements stiff and slow, Rachel noticed but ignored it.
"Where were you?" she asked, slowly dropping and carefully enunciating each word. Pleased when it sounded like the harsh bang of a gavel to her. Rachel Berry: Judge, Jury, and Executioner.
The other woman froze, straightened up even further, then flipped the light on. Quinn blinked at her for a couple seconds, trying to hurry the adjustment of her eyes, sighed, but didn't say a word.
Rachel sprang off the couch and stalked over to the stoic blonde. "Hello? I asked you a question, Quinn. You promised me, you said that you'd be there, I could quote it for you word for word. Do you have any idea how mortifying it was for me to have talked you up so high and then have you simply not show? You didn't even call! What's worse, now they all think I'm stupid and you're some sort of player like all the other assholes I dated. The night was ruined, I spent the whole time either explaining that you weren't there or thinking about the fact that you weren't there. God, this is one simple thing, Quinn. I just want you to come out with me one time – after all, this whole 'making friends' thing was your idea. If you didn't want to go, you could have just said so. I can't believe you – you stood me up. And now you're just going to stand there and not say anything?"
When Quinn still didn't reply, Rachel let out a short cry of anger, in complete disbelief, and stomped her foot. "Quinn Fabray, where were you?"
Quinn sagged, like her shoulders had buckled under invisible weight. She looked like a guilty, sullen, teen being lectured by a parent for being out past curfew. Finally she looked up, very briefly meeting Rachel's eyes, then removed her badge, credentials and keys. Carefully she set down said items, undid her holster and pulled it free of her hip, then walked away.
Stunned, Rachel watched her girlfriend walk down the hall, moving so slowly, fingertips dragging along the wall – and couldn't make herself follow.
Suddenly she felt a bit like a diva of monstrous proportions. Something she'd thought she'd grown out of a long time ago. It had occurred to her that she sometimes forgot things, especially when she got caught up in her own dramatic little world. She felt emotions so strongly it was easy to lose herself in them and things, even important things, that didn't really involve her fell by the wayside.
Things like Quinn's job.
The one with the FBI Violent Crimes Unit.
Quinn's job that had her up and out, on call, at all hours, ready to go at the drop of a hat or ring of her accursed cell phone. Running off to catch serial killers, kidnappers, gun runners, and all other types of dangerous, depraved, criminals. Things that Rachel normally thought quite a lot about, worried over, because of the frequency in which Quinn came home injured…
"Quinn," Rachel breathed as it all slammed down on her. She practically ran down the short hallway to the bedroom, only to find the bedside lamp still on and Quinn already changed and draped across the bed. Her heart stuttered and butterflies erupted in her stomach at the sight – Quinn never left the light on unless she was having trouble getting to sleep. "Quinn?"
"I'm sorry."
Anger forgotten and heart in her throat, Rachel crawled up onto the bed to peer down at the prone form sprawled out on top of it. Quinn never slept on her stomach, ever, and yet there she was laying flat out, hands fisting into the comforter, face pressed into her pillow with her eyes closed tight and forehead pinched.
"Quinn," she tried again to get a response and lightly touched her hand to Quinn's back. A low hiss escaped the blonde and her whole body spasmed away from the touch. A trickle of dread rolled down her spine at the involuntary movement, without asking she curled her fingers under the hem of Quinn's ragged t-shirt and started to ease it up her back.
"Don't," Quinn said wearily. It lacked any fire whatsoever, sounded more sad and despondent than angry. Rachel bit into her bottom lip, now certain of what she would uncover, and kept lifting. She couldn't hold in her gasp, however, when her fears were confirmed. Dark, mottled, bruises covered most of Quinn's back. Tears stung her eyes as she pulled higher, revealing more and more damage. She tugged lightly until Quinn got the hint and with a sigh, eased out of the shirt entirely.
From the base of her spine all the way up to the back of her neck, she was marked. Deeply and painfully bruised.
"What happened?" Rachel whimpered and ghosted her fingers over the marred flesh. She felt like the most horrible, atrocious, ridiculous girlfriend in the world. Valiantly, she battled back her tears and bent down to pass her lips in a whisper of a kiss over a bruised shoulder blade. Quinn's soft skin was hot to the touch, like she had a fever. "Quinn, did you fall?"
"No."
She knew the rules now, what Quinn could and couldn't say – but she also knew a way around them. Asking questions was the best and easiest way to get some sort of information from the blonde. Often Rachel would get just enough information to put together the pieces without breaking Quinn's rules. She would never get case details, or things of that nature, but whenever something inevitably happened to Quinn she could at least know what had caused the damage. Most of the time, that is – she strongly suspected that there were some things Quinn simply wouldn't tell her in what she viewed as protection of Rachel.
"Someone hit you?" she guessed, and studied the pattern, if you could call it that, of abuse marked out across pale skin. None of them looked 'fist-shaped' to her, but she wasn't exactly an expert. They seemed more like ink blots to her. The idea of someone beating Quinn across the back made her stomach clench. Her fingers trembled in her lap, she wanted to touch, somehow soothe, but didn't know how.
"Sort of."
Sort of? She mulled that over, not for very long before it dawned on her. "What did they hit you with?"
"A wall."
Rachel shook her head at Quinn's odd humor and felt her eyebrows draw together as she tried to figure it out in her head. "A wall?"
Quinn remained silent, but it only took a second, and then it became clear – someone had thrown Quinn into, or quite possibly through, a wall. They would have had to pick her up and slam her, with no small amount of force, to cause the amount of damage she saw. Her fists clenched against her thighs and she ground her teeth together.
"Where the fuck was Ryan at?" she demanded hotly. Some partner he had turned out to be! How could he have allowed someone toss Quinn, who was much smaller than him, into a wall like some sort of ragdoll?
"On the suspect."
"On the – well then how…" Rachel tilted her head, her mental slideshow fizzled out. A new scenario replaced the previous, this one with Ryan hanging off another man like a backpack.
"People the size of refrigerators do, and are capable of, strange things when under the influence of PCP," Quinn said.
"May I ask what you did to inspire said appliance-like human to hurl you into said wall?"
"I hit him with a fire extinguisher."
Her nose wrinkled at the imaginary image of Quinn slapping a man who looked like a Kenmore with John Cena's face with a fire extinguisher.
It brought up so many new questions that she wanted to be answered now, but she didn't want to push Quinn any further. As it was she was torn between laughing at the absurdity of her ruminations and crying at the damage done to Quinn. She set her hand between Quinn's shoulder blades and frowned at the heat still coming off of her. "Hold on."
She rolled off the bed and raced to the kitchen, threw open the freezer and grabbed all the ice packs she could find. It took her just a little longer to find enough dish towels to cover all of them. Arms full, she dashed back to the bedroom and slipped back up onto the bed next to the very still body of her girlfriend.
Quinn wasn't sleeping, but she definitely wasn't moving much either, not that Rachel blamed her. She wrapped each ice pack and then placed them gently over Quinn's back, covering as much skin as she could. Quinn moaned at the first cool contact, but barely did more than twitch after that. Once she had the blondes back completely covered, Rachel curled herself up as close to her as she could get. Quinn sighed, a much more content sound than the sigh she'd expelled earlier.
"Did you get the part?"
Rachel smiled and nodded, "Yes, I did. I, Rachel Berry, will be playing Wendy in the new Broadway production of 'Peter Pan'."
"I'm proud of you, Superstar," Quinn mumbled sleepily.
"Not as proud as I am of you," Rachel replied earnestly. She closed her eyes, tucked herself in just a little more tightly against Quinn's side and kissed the back of the blondes neck.
It didn't take long for Quinn to fall asleep, the familiar sound of her light snoring like a sweet lullaby to Rachel's ears, she dropped off soon after Quinn.
The sound of the phone ringing jarred her out of her slumber, bringing her to a dazed state. She blinked, opened her eyes and frowned as she glanced around the still lit room. Beside her, Quinn stirred with a groan and then the ringing stopped.
"Fabray," she said in a low voice.
Rachel couldn't believe it. Lousy luck seemed to haunt her girlfriend.
"Uh no, no, I'll call Agent Peterson. Give us twenty? Yes, sir."
The bed dipped as Quinn sat up with a rough gurgle of discontent, ice packs rained down on the bed. She heard the loud beeps of a cell phone being dialed.
"It's Quinn. We've got another one, Central Park. Yeah, exactly like the others." Quinn stood from the bed as she spoke and Rachel quickly shut her eyes, pretending to still be asleep. "How's your nose? I feel like I got hit by a freight train. Did you get a little sleep at least?"
She could hear Quinn moving around the room, the shuffle of clothing being pulled on and the continued murmur of their conversation.
"She was pissed, and she had every right to be. I shouldn't have promised her."
A warm weight settled against her side and Rachel knew Quinn had sat down beside her, was leaning over her. It was very hard for her to keep up the charade of sleep when all she wanted to do was roll over and beg her not to leave.
"Ryan," Quinn continued to speak, though now in a much quieter tone. Whispering to avoid 'waking' Rachel. "You don't even know what it's like, you just don't. I'll be there to get you in ten, we can continue this discussion in the car."
The phone beeped, signaling the disconnection of the call and Rachel fought even harder with herself. Willed herself to stay still, to continue to appear to be sleeping peacefully. She felt Quinn brush her hair back behind her ear, and warm lips kissed sweetly just below it. "I love you, you know. I'm sorry I let you down."
And then she was gone.
Rachel waited until she heard the front door close and lock before she allowed herself to open up tear filled eyes. Annoyed with herself she rubbed her fingers against her eyelids, wiping the moisture away, and stood from the bed. She padded into the kitchen, ignoring every clock face she saw and went to work, digging out ingredients and a large pot. Setting out everything she'd compiled. She eyed it all critically, making sure she wasn't missing anything, and got to work.
Quinn's favorite soup was thankfully easy to make and never failed to make her face light up.
END