In that moment all of the slushies, the harsh names, the taunting and the bullying were all forgotten as Quinn held the small girl in her arms. A pale hand traced lightly over olive skin and she willed for the girls eyes to open. As if hearing her silent plea, Rachel's eye lids fluttered revealing two pain stricken brown orbs. It was still for a short moment as she regained her senses and the she let out a choked gasp and bucked her shoulder against Quinn's stomach. Quinn ripped her cheerio jacket from her body and pressed it against the wound hard, kicking herself for not trying to stop the bleeding earlier.

"Qu-…Qui-…."
"Shhh. Don't speak, Rachel." She swept her legs out under Rachel's raised shoulders to create a pillow of sorts and traced her face with a hand again.
"I'm so sorry, Berry. I'm so-" She stopped so she wouldn't break down and scare the already terrified girl, but her shoulders still shook violently with silent sobs. Rachel reached out a hand and placed it on the cheerio's arm as if to comfort her. A single, silent tear slipped down her cheek as she closed her eyes once more.
"Berry! Rachel! Wake up!" Quinn shook her uninjured shoulder slightly and slapped gently against her face. "You need to stay awake. You need to stay with me! Don't-" Her stomach flipped and she whispered lightly; "Don't leave me."
Rachel's eyes fluttered open once more and Quinn's heart broke at the sight of the poor girl.
"Quinn?" Her voice was husky and broken. "I for-… I forgive you. For everything, I forgive you."
"Don't Rachel; I don't deserve any of your forgiveness. When you wake up in the hospital, we'll talk about this all properly. I can truly apologize and you can decide then, right now you're not thinking straight. You're in pain. You-"
"Just tell me that I'll be okay. Please, Quinn." Her eyes welled up again.
"You're gonna be so okay Rachel. Great. In fact you'll be awesome." A sad smile graced both of their faces.
"I already am awesome Quinn, you just never noticed."

Shouting came from down the hall and three paramedics and two police officers came running towards them. Quinn gently laid Rachel down for them, but held her hand despite a paramedic trying to pull her away to check on her. An officer gently pried her hand away from Rachel and tugged her into his arms. It was Mr. Jones, Mercedes father, and she wept openly in his arms as a medic waited. He convinced her to get seen to and she watched numbly as they cut open Rachel's sweater to get to her shoulder. The monitor connected to Rachel's finger lost its regular rhythm and fluttered, almost a straight line. The medics frantically tore at a bag to get a defibrillator. A wracking cry sounded through out the hall and Quinn realized that the screams were coming from her, calling for Rachel.

The medics calmly spoke to one another as they applied grey patches to Rachel's chest and placed the paddles against her.
"CLEAR!" Her torso pumped upwards into the air and collapsed limply against the dirty hallway floor.
"CLEAR!" And again.
"CLEAR" And again.
"CLEAR" The regular beeping of the monitor sounded in the hall and Quinn collapsed to a seated position, her throat sore from screaming for her arch-enemy. The medics strapped an oxygen mask onto her face and continued prepping her for transport.
They lifted her onto the gurney and covered her nearly half naked body. Quinn and Mr. Jones trailed after. He hid her face in his jacket when they left the school from the hundreds of scared and curious eyes until he got her into the ambulance. He stopped for a moment and held her hand. They locked eyes and he gave her a sharp nod.
"I'm following behind. I should get there soon after you, but you wait for me there. You hear?" She nodded slowly.
He let go and shut the doors behind him as he left.
His daughter ran up to him in a frenzy.
"What happened? Was it Quinn? Rachel? How are they? Are they hurt? Dad!" He just silently wrapped an arm around her shoulder and led her to his car. She asked no more questions as they drove to the hospital.

Quinn buckled into a chair in the waiting room of the hospital, not caring that her once pristine cheerio uniform was permanently stained with the blood of the girl she was supposed to hate. She went to raise her hands to cover her face until she saw the dull reddy brown that coated them too. She just sat in a still silence staring at her hands.
A nurse came over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"One of those medics that came in asked if I could help get you cleaned up. Do wanna come and change into something else?" Quinn looked up and met the kind nurse's eyes. They looked just like her mother's, and she wished for a moment that she could curl up in her mother's arms as she had when she was younger. When she had a nightmare she would go into her bed without question and curl into her side as the woman stroked her child's hair. Maybe this is just a nightmare. Maybe she could wake up and slip through the darkness to her mother's welcoming embrace.
She just nodded at the nurse and she was led to the bathrooms. She gave Quinn a soft smile as she handed her a pair of sweats, but it faded when she saw the broken girl's face. She turned on the tap for her and placed a hand gently on her shoulder, pulling Quinn from her thoughts.
"You clean up and get changed in one of those stalls." Quinn followed her pointed finger to the bathroom stalls behind her. "I'll be sitting right outside to wait for you, and then we can go see how your friend is doing. Okay?"
Is that what Rachel was to Quinn now? She had taunted and humiliated the girl for years, and she was now her friend?
Quinn nodded at the woman and placed the sweats on a ledge in front of the mirror. The hot water felt cold on Quinn's skin even as her hands turned red from the temperature. The water swirled around the porcelain, colored with Rachel. Once it was all off, Quinn scrubbed at her hands with soap from the pump beside the sink, but she still felt the blood coating her. She eventually gave up knowing that she would feel that blood there for as long as she would ever live and got changed.
She laid out her soiled uniform and then rolled it into a tight cylinder.
As Quinn left the bathroom she took a look at herself in the slightly grubby mirrors. She no longer saw Quinn Fabray. That girl didn't resemble anyone she once knew.

As promised, the nurse was right outside talking quietly with a doctor. She stopped as soon as she saw the blonde girl and showed a smile. Or more accurately, a pained grimace.
Quinn's heart sped as she thought of all of the reason's she would give that look. Rachel is dead. Rachel died for her. The Head Bitch Cheerleader. She had died and it was all Quinn's fault. Rachel would never see Broadway, or sing another gut-wrenching solo ever again. She would never give a long winded rant of which the point could have been made in one simple sentence.
"Your friend is in surgery."Quinn held her breath as she waited for the other shoe to drop. "She's lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion, but she's a healthy girl. She has no history of any ailments at all really apart from a broken nose last year, so providing that there aren't any complications in surgery; she should make a full recovery."
Quinn's shoulders and head sagged in pure relief at the news.
"There are some people in the waiting room for you, honey."
"Who?" Her voiced was croaky from earlier and it hurt to speak.
" An Officer Jones, a man with curly hair and a load of teenagers."
Quinn winced at the thought of explaining everything to them. The nurse took the clothes that Quinn forgot she was holding and placed them in a bag she had ready. She slipped back into her hands and nudged her shoulder slightly to show that she was about to lead her away from the restrooms.
Before they reached the crowd awaiting them, she stopped and turned to the nurse.
"What's your name?" The corners of her mouth twitched slightly before she replied.
"Elizabeth Pillsbury. Ellie."
"Wait so you're-?"
"Emma Pillsbury's sister? Yes, our mother was a great Austen Fan. My brother is named William after Fitzwilliam Darcy." Quinn could tell that she was rambling in a feeble attempt to get her mind off of what happened.
"Thank you Ellie. I don't know…." She trailed off and stared at the floor.
"Don't mention it, I recognized the uniform and went on instinct. I used to be the nurse at McKinley, so it was second nature." They shared a moment of peace before Quinn turned to walk into the room she wanted to avoid and the chaos that it brought.

Immediately they all clustered around her all shouting questions at once. The only people who didn't talk and stayed seated were Mercedes and her father. Quinn pushed past her fellow club members, took the seat next to her friend and fell into her open arms. She found that she couldn't cry any more and just shook as a hand stroked down her hair gently.
The glee club just stared at the girl they knew as confident and infallible break down in front of them. Quinn just let the raw pain and sadness overwhelm her and let it out. Seeing that she wasn't going to speak to any of them, her peers took their seats. Except for Puck. He slowly walked over to Quinn and knelt at her feet. He caught her eye and placed a hand over hers on Mercedes' arm. He turned around and sat on the floor leant against her legs with his hands over his face. Quinn stretched out a hand and ran it through his strip of hair, knowing exactly how the boy felt.

She took a good look at everyone in the room. Apart from Mr Jones, everyone's faces were ridden with guilt. Guilt and shame.
After some time, Finn took the spare seat next to her.
"Quinn?" He whispered, trying not to disturb the hush that had occurred. He failed. Everyone's ears perked up at what the teens would say. "What happened? How is she?"
The sadness that had possessed Quinn suddenly disappeared.
"What?"
"Rachel, you, what happened?" Anger began to bubble over.
"What?" It came out sharp and snappy this time and Finn flinched at the sound.
"I was just wond-"
"Shut up." Her eyes went cold as Finn met her steely gaze.
"But-"
"Shut. Up. Right now, Finn."
Suddenly Finn's anger matched hers.
"Why the hell should I? She was my girlfriend. I loved her. Why the hell can't I ask you about what happened in that hall-"
"FINN." Santana shouted at him from across the room. It was a warning, but he didn't care.
"I have every right to-"
"No, you don't. You have no right to know how that girl is. None of us do. We have no right to even be here waiting for her to be out of surgery and wake up. She doesn't deserve us."
"What the-"
"You treated her like shit, Hudson. You were embarrassed by a girl you supposedly loved. She wanted to show you how she felt; she wanted to be an actual couple with you and you were an ass."
"Quinn, I don't think that this is the right place to-"
"No, Mr Schuester, it isn't the right time or place, but you have no right either. You stood by and watched as we all bullied her. You let it happen, and that is no excuse for myself, but you should be just as ashamed as the rest of us."
"Quinn, hold on a sec-"
"We all were horrible to her. She wanted to belong somewhere, and wanted a family and friends to love her and accept her, but we rejected her constantly. Yes, she was a tad too much sometimes and a diva, but we should all be ashamed of who we've been. The only time we really made an effort to care for her was when she broke her nose, but even then we only wanted her to be able to sing well for Nationals. When we lost because she and Finn kissed, we didn't shout at Finn; no. We all yelled at her. The only people in this room that have some form of exemption from this are Sam and Mike, but that's only because they hardly even talk to her to hurt her."
She stopped her rant and dropped her head to Puck's shoulder in front of her. Everyone just stared at her.
"Why don't you all see what's in the cafeteria? First one to find food that doesn't look like it'sbeen regurgitated wins." People began to make sharp retort to the Latina, but a harsh glare had even Mr Schuester leaving.
"Leave, Frankenteen." Finn trudged out of the room and Santana took his seat. There was just Quinn, Puck, Mercedes, Mr Jones and herself in the room now.
"What happened, Q?" Quinn took a deep breath as she recalled the hallway.

A fire alarm went off as Quinn touched up her make-up in the mirror. She tightened her hair slightly and smoothed her hands over her pleated skirt, flattening invisible wrinkles. The new system had been going haywire for a couple of weeks, and whilst having been fully functional this last week, she still chalked it up to a false alarm. She heard people running and screaming outside the bathroom door and smirked at what she assumed was their stupidity and false panic. She heard a flush as she checked her phone and looked up to see Rachel Berry coming out of the end stall. Her jaw clenched in distaste as she greeted her with an insult. Rachel just walked to the sink dejectedly.
"Hello Quinn."She muttered as she washed her hands.
They both left at the same time but stopped the moment they saw the hallway. Papers were scattered everywhere, lockers had been left open and even bags and various other personal items were on the floor.
"Something's not right." Rachel whispered.
"No shit, Sherlock."
Rachel's lips formed a thin line as she held back a snappy retort for the blonde. They heard footsteps; loud and heavy, and they both scrabbled to get back into the bathroom. As the door swung shut both took slow steps to the other side of the room. Their heartbeats, deafening in their ears, sped up as they heard the footsteps come closer to the door. They passed and Quinn went to the door quietly.
"Quinn!"Rachel whisper shouted, "Don't!"
Quinn pressed an ear to the door and Rachel came up behind her.
"I think they're gone."
They stood for a moment and caught their breath.
The door swung open suddenly and a hand grabbed Quinn's uniform and dragged her out. As she was torn from the room she grabbed Rachel's hand and took her with her.

They were both thrown to the ground as they looked at the barrel of a gun.