Faithful are the Wounds
Author: pratz
Summary: The road to recovery was a long journey, but Rachel was there to hold Quinn's hand.
Disclaimer: RIB's.
Note: Because a car accident, a direct hit nevertheless, is never trivial. Because Glee takes recovery too lightly for its own good. And, most of all, because Rachel and Quinn deserve this.
Sub-note: Kind of a prequel to Daughters. And writing in Rachel's perspective. Is. Difficult. And I don't have a beta. And I've already planned how this story will go, but I like taking things slow. I'd love to hear from you and hear I didn't mess this up.
-.-.-.-
'Faithful are the wounds of a friend.' (Proverbs 27:6)
-.-.-.-
Contrary to popular belief, Rachel never came to the hospital.
Most Glee club members frowned at her, but they did not say anything about or against it. They knew to hold his silence. Even Finn did. Even Mr Schuester, though with clear disappointment in his eyes, offered her his sympathy as far as his understanding could reach. Surprisingly, Puck had been the one hell bent on bringing her to the hospital, but Santana—Santana of all people—had equally surprisingly been the one who had stopped him, saying that it was not the time.
Rachel wondered about the might of time.
She wondered if Finn and she had more than five minute slot so she did not have to rush Quinn. If she did not text Quinn, though knowing that she was driving and on her way—damn those words to hell and beyond. If she listened to Santana when the Latina said that Quinn was not coming, and if she would just accept it instead of continuing to text her missing bridesmaid. If she really saw how vehemently disapproving Quinn and Kurt had been of her rushing into a marriage at eighteen. If she really paid heed to Quinn's concern—because, for God's sake, it was not something that a somewhat foe-turned- friend did every day—about her ruining her life on that day in the bridal shop.
And most of all, she wondered if Quinn had one more second to see the oncoming truck and swerve and avoid the crash and come to see her and just not be in the hospital.
"Rachel dear?"
She almost got herself a whiplash from turning too fast. Hiram was standing at her door, looking surprised himself by her reaction.
"Sorry," he flashed a smile apologetically. "I just want to let you know we're going."
She stiffened when she knew she should not be. Hiram had told him days before about his plan. While the Berrys were not always in a good term with the Fabrays, they were neighbors. Leroy even went to the same school with the patriarch, Russel Fabray, and redecorated the family's house for Judy Fabray after her divorce. Of course they went to see the Fabrays' youngest daughter when she was hospitalized. Indeed, this would be their third time in just two weeks.
"Baby?" Hiram asked. "Are you sure you don't—"
"I'm not going, Dad," she cut quickly in glum distress. "I can't—I'm not—" Just that, and Hiram's arms around her were like a safe cocoon inside which a butterfly was struggling to develop its fragile wings.
"I know, baby," Hiram whispered onto her hair, and she wanted to cry at the understanding in her father's voice. "I know. It's okay."
"No, it's not," she mumbled against his suit. "I'm not." And Quinn isn't, too. And I can't face her now because I'm too much of a coward and I know I don't have the guts to see her and I don't want her to see me like this, she added mentally.
As Hiram's arms tightened around her, a gentle throat clearing interrupted them, and Rachel found Leroy's solemn expression behind Hiram's back.
Leroy raised a paper bag full of three hardcopy books. "We've got this. You sure it's all?"
"Yes," she said. "I know she's awake and though I've never been hospitalized, I won't say hospital stay is a pleasant experience. So, yes—hence the books. I hope they help." She winced at her own words. "I'm not sure whether I get her preference right, but I know she enjoys books and I hope—"
"Oh she does," Hiram was the one interrupting this time. "The last time we visited her, there's a pile of books on the bedside. The ones that you picked included." He smiled reassuringly. "You get it right, baby."
She damn wished she did.
"So," Leroy said, looking at her in the way she just knew that he wanted her to change her mind, sighing when his wish wasn't granted, "anything you want to say to Quinn?"
Tell her I'm so sorry and I'll do everything to make it up to her and I want her to forgive me and I miss her, she wanted to say, but what she let out was, "Just don't tell her that the books are from me."
"Rachel," Leroy began.
"No, Daddy. Not now." She hated disappointing her fathers, but she could not help being relieved as it was settled with a subdued sigh from both Leroy and Hiram.
As they left, Rachel wondered what her fathers would say if she told them she wanted them to let her know if Quinn's face lit up as she saw them.
And how it would fall as she noticed there were only two Berrys instead of three.
She somehow wished it.
-.-.-.-
Her fathers returned from the hospital right after she finished preparing dinner. They did not talk much about Quinn as they ate, but once or twice Rachel caught the way Leroy's frown dug itself deeper in the crease between her eyebrows as he tried to catch her eye. She managed to avoid it, though, and excused herself earlier, saying she had two quizzes tomorrow. She did not really have to study for quizzes she had long prepared for, but she needed to do something—anything—to hold herself back from asking her fathers about Quinn.
Two hours into her futile attempt of studying, Leroy knocked at her door, signaling her of the moment of doom she had been impeding since the afternoon.
"Do you have a moment?" Leroy said. "This won't take long."
Sitting up, she scooted over on the bed to give him space. The bed suddenly felt cramped even though it was just the two of them, Leroy's sock-clad feet bumping onto her bare ones. Staring at her wriggling toes, she vaguely recalled Puck said something about Quinn's legs, about details she neither wanted to hear nor remember, and all so sudden she felt sick. So sick.
Noticing the sudden tense in her posture, Leroy looped an arm across her shoulder, rubbing her arm softly like he always did when she had nightmares about her scary, drill sergeant-like mathematics teacher in the fifth grade. She had tried to ignore the dreams, but it had been to no avail. Leroy might be the stricter, rule enforcer father, but he was also the one whose assurance had always mattered the most to Rachel. Thus he was the one Rachel turned to after nights of having the same nightmare.
Ignoring it won't make it disappear, baby girl. Just because you can't see it, it doesn't mean it's not there. Leroy had said back then. Face it. You're bigger than your fear.
Leroy handed her a worn out, dog-eared book, placing it on her lap. "From Quinn," he said. "She said she wanted you to have it back."
She frowned at the book, a copy of Rabindranath Tagore's Stray Bird. She did not remember picking the book for Quinn, but her mind might have deluded her when she was selecting books from the library. She remembered picking some titles, but not Stray Bird, because, well, she did not even know if Quinn read poetry.
Then again, I don't know much about her, she thought.
"We talked," Leroy said, as if noticing her confusion. "Quinn doesn't strike me as an avid reader, but apparently we really can't judge a book by its cover, can we? She said it's a good book, and she thanked you for that." At Rachel's more confused expression, Leroy simply opened a page.
There was a highlighted line on that page, the color neon bright unlike the dimness of her bedroom. There was also an evidence of practiced art of marginalia—Quinn's neat writing on the left of the line, and Rachel could just imagine Quinn's determination as she highlighted and scrabbled down her notes. Her hand shook as she clutched at the book as if it was a life saver, as if it would make everything alright again, as if it would bring Quinn back to school, to Glee club, to them, to her.
The line stung her eyes, and she wanted to believe in it.
'When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.'
-.-.-.-
