Disclaimer: Characters of 'Popular' and 'Glee' do not belong to me. I'm just playing with them.
Summary: In the aftermath of 'On My Way' Rachel finds an unexpected kindred soul wandering the hallways of the hospital.
A/N II:
Also, i kind of feel like i petered out towards the end. Sorry about that.
Rachel could still see the wreckage when she closed her eyes. Could see the blood, the lump of mangled metal that had once been a red Volkswagen beetle. Quinn's lifeless and bloodied body lying as still as a corpse at the side of the road where the EMTs were trying to save her. There were stains on her wedding dress that would never come out; a wedding dress that she'd never wear again. She'd washed her hands a thousand times, but they still felt sticky with that precious red liquid of life. They wouldn't come clean.
There had been people trying to usher her into a car, maybe her daddy or maybe it had been Finn, maybe both. All she remembered was being gripped by the freezing, time-stilling hands of fear and then clambering into the back of the ambulance behind the stretcher that held the body of the motionless girl. She'd looked dead. Deathly pale, safe for the bright splashes of red, and Rachel had to cling to the hard plastic of the bench on which she sat to stop herself from checking Quinn's pulse. There was a heart monitor; she remembered hearing the beeps. As comforting as they were maddening, because they were slow in their pacing. Weak. Fading.
Then there had been the bright white lights of the hospital and the smell of sterilized floors and medical equipment, and she was being told she had to wait outside. And Rachel had never dealt with being told she couldn't do something very well. She'd cried and, if the torn shreds that were all that it felt as though were left of her throat were any indication, she'd screamed as well. There'd been a nurse there, trying to calm her down and then handing her off to her dad when her parents and Finn finally arrived. The rest of the Glee club had appeared not long after, looking out of place in their show choir gear. It was too loud. There were too many people and they all kept talking. To her, at her. Asking her questions she didn't have answers to, and then there was Finn. Still wearing the suit he'd intended to marry her in and her still in her dress; it was all too much.
Later that evening, waking up to find herself curled into a ball on her bed and blanketed by the darkness that had snuck in through the window with the coming of night, Rachel had wondered if maybe she'd fainted or blacked out. Memories of leaving the hospital, of getting home, changed, of anything other than the instant aftermath of the accident were gone. It could have all been a dream, if her wedding dress hadn't been lying across from her. A crumple, blood spattered reminder.
Now, sitting in the empty twilight-dim cafeteria of the hospital, Rachel stared unseeing at a point somewhere in front of her. How had this happened? The question twisted the already tight knot in her stomach in a way that almost had her retching. How had she let it?
Sam McPherson hated hospitals. It didn't matter if she was there for an injury or because someone was giving out free brownies; she hated them. She supposed it was because she'd spent what felt like a lot of her life in them. Between her dad, Harrison, and Brooke, she'd had too many days backlit by stark white and filled with the scent of an unnatural cleanliness. It gave her anxiety and, she'd suspected at times, stomach ulcers. It also made her annoyingly jittery, apparently. She'd been sent out of the hospital room to find something to eat with a sternly pointed finger and a glare hot enough to melt glass. She'd gone with little fuss.
The cafeteria of the hospital was fairly empty at this time of the morning. The sun had come up about an hour ago, the morning being ushered in by the staff rotation, and there were only a few people to be seen out and about. A few of the volunteer workers were setting up at the kitchen, putting out sandwiches and fruit and other things she wasn't in the mood for, and as her eyes scanned the dining area she only counted five other people. She stopped in front of a vending machine and perused the selection of tiny ice-cream tubs.
"I could go for sugar." Sam stuck a hand in her pocket, jingling the change at its bottom and pulled out the small handful. She slid the necessary number of quarters into the machine, pointedly ignoring the voice echoing in her head that was telling her that ice-cream was not a suitable breakfast food, and hit the specified buttons. The machine whirred, coming to life, and she thrummed her fingers against its side where her hand rested. When the tell-tale 'thud' sounded, she bent to retrieve her snack with a smile of childish glee on her face. She moved to the garbage can, popping off the lid and detaching the small spoon before tossing it out, and then scooped a portion onto the spoon. She slid it into her mouth, turning back to let her eyes roam the room surreptitiously.
There was an elderly man sat at one of the circular tables with who she assumed was his wife. She looked a little pale and Sam could see the IV bag suspended on the rolling stand behind her, but she was smiling as she leaned forward with a napkin to wipe something off the man's face. Another man, younger and wearing a bathrobe, stood and headed for the double doors that led outside to a small patio area; through the window she watched him light a cigarette. And for a second, envied him. Just a little. Because she remembered what it was like to be calmed by the taste of nicotine and the monotony of inhaling and exhaling. But that had been a long time ago, when the only threat of being yelled at would have come from her mother. Now the repercussions would be much more frightening. There was another woman who sat at a table littered with coffee cups, cheek propped against her hand as her eyes drifted sleepily. Dutiful visitors, some there until the bitter end. She'd seen her fair share of those over the years. Had been one of them, too.
The last individual occupying the space was a young girl, Sam guessed she was probably under twenty, who had curled herself into a corner of the couch that was pressed against the far wall of the cafeteria. Her face was drawn, eyes red and blank as they stared ahead of her. Unseeing. She looked as if she hadn't slept in a week and had no intentions of starting any time soon. Sam felt something resonate somewhere close to where she suspected her soul lay. She'd seen that same look on her own face, knew how it felt to cry until your eyes felt like they were bleeding and there were no tears left. She was reminded of herself. And that was probably why she didn't think too long or hard before she let her feet walk her towards the girl, who looked even more diminutive than Sam suspected she was under the weight of her sorrow.
She approached with cautious steps and, sucking the remaining ice-cream from the spoon and pulling it out with a smack of her lips, Sam came to a stop before the girl. The girl didn't look up, didn't even seem to realise someone was standing almost directly in front of her. Sam felt her heart clench painfully.
"Hey." She whispered, not wanting to startle the girl. Brown eyes rimmed with red and deep with sadness blinked a few times in rapid succession and then darted up to Sam's face. The older woman offered a smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to…" She paused, waving her left hand inanely, and then drew her eyebrows together in a frown because she wasn't sure how she'd planned to finish that sentence. Something about the girl before her was disarming though, and the fact that she couldn't put her finger on it didn't make it any less true. She dropped her hand, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the ice-cream she was holding in the other. "Are you by yourself?" The girl sniffed and as her eyes darted from side to side, Sam could see they were glassy. Tears brimming in them, but refusing to fall. Finally, she received a nod. Sam digested that and then with a deep breath, met the eyes that kind of reminded her of her own. "You shouldn't be." She saw the effect her words had on the girl the moment they hit. There was a sharp intake of air, the shifting of shoulders as the shudder of a sob or of anger or something shook them, and the girl drew her lower lip between her teeth and bit down on it. Sam could have just left well enough alone. Except that should couldn't, not really. "Mind if I sit?" She waved a hand to the vacant spot on the couch beside the girl and waited for a second nod. When it came, she dropped gently into place and lifted another spoonful of ice-cream to her lips. She glanced sidelong at the girl, thoughts moving about her brain like jenga blocks. If she didn't pick the right one, everything would collapse. "My name's Sam." She offered a smile, reaching over with her right hand to offer it in greeting. "McPherson." Sad eyes dropped to the offered appendage and, after a few seconds, Sam found her hand being shook.
"Rachel." The girl finally spoke and though her voice was barely above a whisper, Sam was able to hear it in the quiet. "Rachel Berry." The woman's lips parted to show white teeth in a wide smile that remained soft at the edges.
"It's nice to meet you, Rachel." And Sam found a tentative and unsure smile being directed back at her.
They sat like that for a moment, allowing the sounds of the hospital waking around them to fill the space where words usually flowed. Sam spooned the ice-cream into her mouth, suddenly not hungry for it but forcing herself to eat it anyway.
"You mind if I ask you why you're by yourself?" Rachel turned her head to look at her, the faintest echo of a smile about her lips.
"No. I don't mind." The girl's eyebrows knitted together as she disappeared into her thoughts, searching for one and pulling it to the forefront of her mind when she found it. "My dad's, my boyfriend, everyone really… they keep asking me if I'm okay." Her frown deepened. "As if the answer is suddenly going to change. How could it?" She whispered, gaze turning far off as it drifted to the floor. "How could I possibly be okay?" It was rhetorical, Sam knew Rachel didn't expect an answer.
"Do you want to talk about it?" She offered after a moment, knowing that much at least. That sometimes talking helped better than anything else could. But Rachel shook her head, a little frantically, eyes turning frightened. "Okay, that's fine." Sam reassured her with a smile that she hoped was comforting. This time, Rachel didn't return it, and instead seemed to draw into herself. Into a memory. And then silence fell again. Sam finished her ice-cream and sat the empty tub on the arm of the couch, bring her hands together and interlocking her fingers. "I hate hospitals." She confessed suddenly, drawing the girl's eyes back to her face. Sam glanced at her, smile turning sad. "I've spent way too much of my life in these places."
"Why are you here now?" She felt her gaze turn distant and didn't try to stop it. Her expression shifted from one of sorrowful regret to one of utter happiness as her lips parted to speak the words that left her reverently.
"I just became a mom." And she still couldn't quite believe it, even though she'd been staring at a baby, her baby, a real live baby, no more than ten minutes ago. It didn't feel real. Rachel's lips twitched upwards for a few heartbeats.
"Congratulations." And then a look of confusion shadowed her face and she let her eyes drift the length of Sam. "You are in remarkable shape considering you just had a baby." At that, Sam laughed. The sound seemed too loud in the room, like it didn't belong.
"Oh, no. I didn't…" She chuckled, waving a hand at Rachel. "My wife." She said by way of explanation. "Brooke, she gave birth to Joseph." Rachel's confusion melted away, replaced by understanding and something Sam couldn't quite pinpoint. "But I mean, your compliment would still stand up. She's still…." The breath left her in a happy sigh. "Beautiful."
"That's really great." Rachel said, sounding like she meant it and smiling at Sam in a way that seemed genuine. "How did you and your wife meet?" It struck Sam as odd that a teenager would go directly from realising she was speaking with a woman who had a wife to asking about how they met, her thoughts a sad reflection of the times, but she was also pleasantly surprised by the girl's apparent open-mindedness. But then the question being directed at her penetrated fully and she had to wrestling the urge to laugh, still so strong even after so many years, into a grin.
"High school." She eventually settled on. A look of surprise flickered across Rachel's face and she repeated the answer as a question. Sam nodded. "Yeah, it doesn't just happen in movies, I guess. Some people really do marry their high school sweetheart and end up blissfully happy." She sounded lovesick and she knew it. She also didn't care. She'd flown by 'caring' a very long time ago. But at her words, Rachel's gaze turned dark again. Sam remembered that look far too well. She sometimes woke up from a dead sleep with it lingering on her face. "Is that…?" she trailed off, not sure how to ask without sounding insensitive or intrusive. "Is that who you're here for?" She hedged after a moment and could tell by the way Rachel's shoulders dropped, the way a tear finally escaped at the same time a strangled sob did, that she'd gotten it right. Awkward, Sam found herself caught between wanting to comfort the girl and being in no position to do so. So she was resigned to sit and feel a familiar wave of grief roil at the pit of her stomach.
"There was a car accident." Rachel choked out, sweeping her thumbs beneath her eyes to wipe away the tears, and Sam felt her entire body go cold. "And I was-" But even as she wiped, the tears kept coming. "I was about to get married." At that, Sam jerked herself free of her reverie.
"Married?" She echoed, sounding more disbelieving and scandalized than she'd intended, and even though she knew that question about to leave her was not the one she should be asking right now, it ambled out regardless. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen." Rachel answered.
"That's… well that's…" Sam trailed off, floundering. There wasn't anything she could say without knowing she'd be behaving like a hypocrite. After all, she'd found the person she wanted to be with forever at that age. She blinked, shaking her head. "Sorry, that's so completely not any of my business." Rachel shifted in a half-shrug.
"It doesn't really matter anymore. We didn't go through with it." And there was so much pain in her as she spoke, evidence of it written across her face, bowing her body. "Finn, he- my boyfriend." Rachel frowned, fumbling with the words. "Ex-boyfriend. He was really upset but I couldn't…." She stopped as her tears overwhelmed her. Streaking her face, painting sorrow across it like war paint. Sam's forehead creased as she tried to follow the girl's train of thought.
"Was your boyfriend in the accident?" After a few beats of silence, Rachel shook her head and bit her lip.
"No. It was his… my friend, and she…." She brought her hands up, resting her forehead against her palms. "It's all so messed up." Sam bent forward, tilting her head to catch Rachel's gaze as she chuckled a little dismissively, but not unkindly.
"Trust me, I can handle a messed up situation or five." Rachel levelled her with a look that was boarding on disbelief and sit back against the couch. Sam took a breath, pursing her lips as she steeled herself.
"Okay," she said through a loud exhale, "how about an example? Brooke and I, the reason we finally worked things out between us was because we got yourself embroiled in a disgustingly clichéd teenaged love triangle with a guy we'd both known for years. He loved both of us, he really did, and we fought over him like a lioness would fight for a downed buffalo. But after Brooke-" Sam paused, running her fingers through her hair. "She got hit by a car, ended up in the hospital. We almost lost her." She said the words in the rush, wanted to get them out as quickly as possible. Like pulling off a Band-Aid; it would never be quick and painless, but it could at least be quick. "But through that we figured out that we loved each other. And now, ten years later, that guy we fought over is still one of our best friends and is actually the reason we have Joey." Rachel's expression was blank as she took the information in; the only time her expression changed was with mention of the car accident. She'd felt pain flood her then, tinged with the eerie feeling that them having this conversation couldn't be mere coincidence. There were too many similarities. She bit the inside of her cheek as some strange kind of defence against remembered moments; a bridal shop argument, a hesitant verification in a silent hallway of McKinley, the way it had felt the first time she'd been allowed to hug Quinn. The realisation that'd she'd had daydreams about hugging the other girl. Rachel's breath caught in her throat, coming out as a strangled half-gasp.
"She… Quinn is…." Tears threatened again as she spoke the name and Rachel choked back a laugh at the impossibility of them; she had nothing left inside her to cry out. Pain had chased everything away.
"She had the accident?" Sam hedged and for a moment, Rachel could only nod. It wasn't often that the diva found herself afraid. Being a performer of her calibre, stage fright had never been something she'd worried over, and once you've sung your heart out in front of people ready and willing to ridicule you, there wasn't much left to be afraid of. But there were certain things, things that niggled at the back of her mind that she forced back into shadows when they tried to step into the light. Things that she didn't understand and that kind of muddied murkiness terrified her. But there was something about the person sitting beside her, with her kind face and genuine smile, that pulled at the threads of the thing holding all of Rachel's carefully hidden feelings in check. Forcing them out.
"Quinn is the former girlfriend of my now ex-boyfriend." She pushed the words out as if fearing they'd bite her if she didn't get away from them fast enough. "And I think I fell in love with her a long time ago." Sam felt her heart shoot into her throat and was suddenly very glad she was sitting down. It was funny how lightheaded a mental slap to the face could make you. "How could I have been so stupid?"
There was silence between them then, the only sounds emanating from the kitchen as coffee pots were put to work and clean plates were stacked. It was all so familiar to Sam, like she was looking at a weirdly skewed version of her younger self. Like a reflection in one of those funhouse mirrors, only there was really nothing funny at all about this situation.
"If I'd just said something," Rachel said at length, her voice coming as a low, pained whisper and Sam felt her body go rigid at a sudden upheaval of crystal clear memories. "If I'd told her the truth about the song…." She knew that feeling, the one that ate at the pit of your stomach until you felt as if it had gone right through and left you empty. "This would never have happened." The young girl sniffed, pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes and resting her elbows on her knees. Sam remembered the nights she'd spent awake, replaying events over and over in her mind, tweaking details here and there to make them play out differently. She hadn't wanted to, but she'd been unable to stop. Because 'what if?' was one of the worst questions a person could ask themselves. It could drive you crazy. Poking the tip of her tongue into her cheek, Sam took a breath and reached out, tentatively laying a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"You can't… you can't do that to yourself, okay?" Rachel dropped her hands and set watery red eyes on the former high school reporter beside her. There was a remembered pain on the face of the woman, the ghost of a haunted expression that made Rachel want to listen, as opposed to just walk away like she'd done when her dads and Finn and everyone else had tried to offer advice. "Shit happens, and I know that's a really awful thing for me to say, but it's the truth." Knitting her brows together, Sam worried her lower lip for a moment, trying to choose the right words. "You can't change what happened, but future isn't written in stone, Rachel. You have a choice in where you go from here." Rachel continued to stare in silence, content to listen to Sam speak for the minute. "You're standing at the same crossroads that I stood at, and I know it's scary. I know it feels like there are so many decisions and the one you know in your heart that you want to make seems the scariest of all, but take it from someone who somehow found the courage to walk that path." Pausing, Sam glanced down at the wedding band on her ring finger. A thousand memories hit her at once, memories that would have remained as figments of her imagination had she not taken a risk. She lifted her gaze and found Rachel still looking at her, eyes intent and pleading. Desperate to be told what she should be doing next. But all Sam could offer was an opinion based on experience. "Sometimes you need to listen to what your heart is telling you to do and ignore what your brain is afraid of."
Slipping quietly into the hospital room, Sam smiled a silent greeting to the woman lying beneath the customary green sheets before sliding her gaze to the quietly dozing bundle that lay in the cot at the foot of the bed.
"Sleeping like a baby." Sam mused wryly, striding to the side of the bed and bending to press a light kiss to Brooke's waiting lips. The blonde hummed into it, lifting a hand to Sam's cheek, holding the other woman in place.
"At least he doesn't snore like his mommy." Brushing their noses together, Sam pulled back to watch as Brooke scooted over on the bed, harrumphing in mock-offence.
"I don't snore." She protested, though the vehemence of it has been greatly watered down over the years. Now, Brooke just rolled her eyes and patted the space she'd created beside her.
"We talked about this, Sammie." She trilled, her voice sickly sweet as Sam clambered ungracefully onto to hospital bed. "I have a slight pixelated, though definitely undeniable cell phone video that proves otherwise." Sam rolled into the blonde's side, sighing contentedly as Brooke's arms went about her and she felt lips brush across the top of her head.
"Hoax." She murmured against the skin of Brooke's neck, taking a second to just breathe the other woman in. Brooke scoffed.
"You're lying on your back with your mouth hanging open and you sound like a broken chainsaw. How can you possibly refute that kind of evidence?" Sam grinned, burrowing closer.
"I don't need to. No one will ever believe it. I'm too ladylike." At that Brooke actually snorted and then hastily lifted a hand to cover her mouth, eyes darting towards the still quiet cot at the end of the bed. "I resent that outburst." Quietly chuckling, Brooke returned her hand to Sam's hip, slipping a thumb beneath her shirt and tracing small circles along the skin she found there.
"Did you eat something?" Sam made an arbitrary noise that conveyed nothing in the way of an actual answer. Brooke pinched the flesh above the brunette's hip, grinning when Sam whined in protest. "Ice-cream is not food, Sam."
"How do you even know that's what I ate?" Sam asked, jerking back to look up at Brooke in surprise. The blonde dipped her head, planting a kiss on the end of Sam's nose.
"Because I know you." Rolling her eyes, the smaller woman fell back into place against her and the room fell silent. As the seconds ticked by, Brooke became increasingly aware of Sam's hand at her hip and the way she seemed to be grasping at her with tentatively growing fervour. "Sammie?" She heard the brunette swallow, the harshness of it audible in the quiet of the room, and Brooke knew she was crying. Moving her hand again, she brought her fingers to her wife's chin and tilted her head back up. The glow from the blinding overhead lights highlighted the tracks her tears had made across her cheeks and Brooke thumbed them away. "What's wrong?" Sheepishly, Sam smiled and lightly shook her head.
"Nothing. Everything's…" she licked her lips, "perfect." Brooke frowned at her, hazel eyes glimmering flashes of green in the luminescent light. "I met this girl in the cafeteria. She was so sad and her eyes looked so hollow… her friend was in a car accident." Brooke's frown melted away and after a long pause during, she pulled Sam back down against her, smoothing a hand over dark hair. "Turns out, she's in love with her but hadn't found the courage to tell her yet. Kinda weird, huh?" Voice suddenly thick with tears, Sam stumbled over the words a little, but Brooke heard every single one.
"Yeah." She whispered, dropping her head to rest it against her wife's. "I'm okay, Sammie." Sniffing loudly, Sam nodded against her and tightened her hold.
"I know." And Sam counted her blessings with every passing day. "I just hope they will be too."
In another wing of the hospital, in a room darkened by the closing of blinds and quiet save for the beeping of heart monitors, Rachel Berry sat beside the bed of Quinn Fabray and waited. With a lifeless hand clasped tight in her own, she stared at the peaceful, though marred, features of the blonde's face and wondered how she could have let herself become so blind. Because she knew there'd been more between them, had always been more, but she'd forced it away. Whether in an act of self-preservation or unwilling acceptance, she didn't know. But the reasons didn't seem to matter anymore.
She sat unmoving at Quinn's side and waited. For the twitch of a finger, the flicker of an eyelid; for Quinn to wake. Because Rachel was done running. Done being scared and lying to herself. Rachel was going to try listening to her heart for a change.