A/N: This multichapter fic is a continuation of my oneshot "Price of Fate." Reading that oneshot is not necessary to reading this story. This first chapter is an extended cut of sorts of the oneshot with new scenes and more detail.
Equilibrium is canon up to "Choke." There are also some canon elements from "Prom-asaurus." I would classify this principally as a college!Faberry fic.
I apologize in advance for any medical inaccuracies.
And finally, I would like to thank thoughtsinorange for all of her work as my beta.
Thank you for giving this a shot. I hope you enjoy!
Equilibrium
Chapter 1: The Deal
The secondhand ticks ever slowly. It circles and circles. Endless. Infinite. Time only has meaning if there is death to go with life.
She sleeps.
"Please! You can't let her die. You can't let her die. She doesn't deserve this! PLEASE!" Rachel cries. She's sitting on the ground. Her palms are pressed together and against her forehead, almost like she's praying—and maybe, maybe she is. She rocks, shaking. She gasps, sucking in uneven breaths.
More desperate words spill from her mouth—a mantra of wretched, urgent lyrics.
She begs, she pleads. She just wants someone to hear her because Quinn doesn't deserve this.
"Please, this can't be her fate! Not now! Not when things are finally going right for her! She doesn't deserve it! Let her live!"
"Is this what you wish for Rachel Barbra Berry? In your heart of hearts?"
The voice echoes all around her. It's composed and androgynous. Each word is carefully measured in the same even tone as its predecessor.
Rachel, for the first time, tries to focus on her surroundings. She can't. There's nothing but an infinite expanse of gray. No beginning and no end. The voice is bodiless, but not lifeless. She can feel it living and breathing around her.
"Yes! Please!" Rachel says, her voice broken. "Let her live!"
"To live is not in Lucy Quinn Fabray's fate Rachel Barbra Berry."
"Then change it! Change her fate!"
She's angry now. Why dangle hope in front of her only to snatch it away?
"To change a person's fate is no simple task Rachel Barbra Berry. To change it, another must change theirs in return. To give, something else must be taken away. I ask once again Rachel Barbra Berry. In your heart of hearts, do wish for Lucy Quinn Fabray to live?"
"You mean," Rachel whispers, "if my fate, my life, is altered from what it is supposed to be, Quinn will live."
"Yes."
"Then yes," she says resolutely, "I'll give anything to allow Quinn a chance to live."
"It is done."
"Hey... Hey Rachel. Wake up."
Rachel opens her eyes to the waiting room of the hospital. Her vision is blurry and full. She realizes that she's been crying in her sleep. She blinks rapidly, clearing her sight and mind. And with it, everything suddenly comes together. She sits up quickly, adrenaline pumping through her system.
"Rachel, hey," Finn says quietly from next to her, reaching out and placing an arm around her. She had been leaning against his shoulder. He's anxious, she can tell. His leg bounces erratically. "The doctors are here."
"Hey baby girl," her dad says from her other side. "Do you… do you want to listen?"
Rachel looks over the short distance to where Ms. Fabray stands with a couple of doctors. Her heart picks up its pace as the rest of the glee club begins to crowd together near the doctors. Santana and Brittany curl around each other. Tina and Mike hold hands in a white-knuckled grip. Puck paces, his jaw tight. Kurt and Blaine, Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury, Sam and Mercedes, Rory, Sugar, Artie. Rachel wastes no more time. She springs to her feet, dragging Finn with her. She wipes at her eyes, trying to get rid of the remnants of tears for at least the moment.
She steals a glance at the clock on her way. The secondhand keeps ticking. Quinn's been in surgery for hours.
"Ms. Fabray, are you okay with us sharing your daughter's status?" one of the doctors begins, surveying the crowd around her.
Judy Fabray nods her head tightly, granting her consent. She looks as if she will break if anyone touches her.
"There's no getting around it. Quinn sustained substantial injuries. We momentarily lost her on the operating table," the doctor says gravely. Rachel feels as if her own heart stopped. There's a choked sob from somewhere in their crowd as well as a number of shaky gasps. Thankfully, the doctor quickly continues. "We were able to revive her. With some difficulty, but we were still able to revive her. We're not in the clear yet, but right now, she's a very lucky girl…"
The doctor goes on with words like broken, bruised, spine, emergency, weak, bleeding. It's terrifying. But Quinn's alive.
Quinn's alive.
And after the briefing is over, after hearing everything, Rachel is simultaneously relieved and numb because it seems impossible that anyone could be alive after that. And then there's the paralysis. She thinks about Quinn, graceful and fluid, and tries to imagine her unable to dance. She can't.
There's more waiting. The secondhand on the large clock over reception moves slowly, so slowly. It's supposed to be at least two hours before anyone is actually allowed to visit Quinn. Rachel knows it's to ensure Quinn's stable. But it is one thing to know and another entirely to accept. All she wants is to see Quinn. To make sure for herself that Quinn is alive. And then maybe she can start to process everything else.
A few people leave—Rory, Sugar—and others still refuse when their parents come calling—Mercedes, Mike. It's past visiting hours. While everyone besides Ms. Fabray is frowned at, the hospital still hands off visitor badges to stay overnight. Lima Memorial probably has its fair share of trauma patients, but they normally don't have a dozen high school students waiting for one of their own. Rachel sits between her dad and Finn. They're big and secure, but their presence is almost too much. She feels smothered. When Finn gets up to take a walk or use the bathroom or she doesn't even know—she wasn't listening—Kurt sits down beside her almost immediately.
He's silent, staring pensively into the distance, and then after a moment he speaks. "The last time I spoke to Quinn, I belittled everything she went through. I told her she had no idea what pain is," his voice breaks, but he presses on before Rachel can say anything. "And now, all I can sit here thinking about is everything Quinn did go through, and how I can't believe I told her she never suffered. That's before this. The last thing I said was that she doesn't know suffering. Well congrats to me, looks like she'll know it even more now."
Rachel doesn't say anything. She's not sure what she can say.
"The last thing…" Kurt echoes and a noise escapes out of his mouth that is both a laugh and a sob.
Rachel's abruptly angry as Kurt's words finally process. But just as quickly it rises, the anger falls away. There's nothing to sustain it when Kurt is upset as he is, and she has too much weight from her own guilt to shoulder his too. "You were scared—I'm assuming it had to do with Dave? But that was selfish," Rachel whispers. "I've been scared, and I've been selfish too."
It's the first time she's whispered that confession about her life from the past weeks aloud, and it makes the truth of it even more real. Kurt hears, but he doesn't understand.
"I was scared," Kurt says. "Suicide is—I was scared. But I wasn't right. I was awful to her. Just because someone is pretty and smart doesn't mean they don't suffer. …Rachel?"
"Yes?"
"I'm scared for her now." And then Kurt leaves and Rachel processes. And the secondhand on the clock ticks on.
The waiting room seems as if it's all she's ever known. The events of what was supposed to be happiest day of her life are clouded and distant. She's not quite sure how she got to the hospital, or when her wedding dress became jeans and a soft sweater. Rachel thinks it would have felt like a bubbly blur if things had gone the way they were supposed to, but now the wedding, and everything related to it, feels so reckless. So contrived.
So stupid.
Because Quinn is in the intensive care unit with broken bones, internal bleeding, bruised organs, a concussion, and a pinched spinal cord. Quinn's alive. Quinn's paralyzed.
Rachel's a child, trying to play adult. She's lost, and instead of asking for directions, she presses on and on and on hoping to figure it out on her own. Finn seems like an answer. But marriage? Marriage? That's certainly not an answer to her fear, her doubt. It shouldn't have taken this to see it.
Finn is still there, sitting beside her. They don't touch each other, but he's there. He's solid and real, and she can take comfort in that because nothing seems tangible anymore. Life is so quick, so precious, and she tried to race through it. That wasn't the answer. She values his life. She values her own life. Together, she thinks they can be beautiful. But it didn't have to be today. She didn't have to choose immediately. She could have, should have listened. There's always tomorrow. Even if the clock almost stopped ticking for Quinn.
She would do anything to make sure Quinn lives. She knows that without a doubt. That dream, whatever it was, is entirely too real. She would make that decision, that very same decision for Quinn in a conscious state. Altering her life? Her life would be changed without Quinn. Her life is changed already with Quinn.
Then the doctors return. She's not sure how far the secondhand has ticked. It was worse before, when they didn't know, when they had no idea. During this wait, some of her friends spoke in hushed tones, while others managed to rest without the wide, scared eyes. But aside from her conversation with Kurt, Rachel keeps her silence.
The entire glee club follows Ms. Fabray and the doctors at a short distance to the ICU. Rachel finds herself trailing the pack with Finn. Her dads wait behind with the Hummel-Hudsons, Mr. Schuester, and Ms. Pillsbury. She appreciates them still being there. She also wonders if it means anything that she much rather be holding one of her fathers' arms than Finn's.
Rachel can just hear the doctor speak to Ms. Fabray as he pulls to a stop outside the door. "…prepare yourself. No more than ten minutes at a time, and only two of anyone at a time."
The others take seats at the chairs and benches in the small waiting area of the ICU section. It's more waiting, but at least it's a different location. And she's closer to Quinn. She stares at the door just a few yards away. And then the secondhand is moving much faster because Ms. Fabray comes out and disappears before anyone can ask anything.
They stare at each other and back to the door of Quinn's room. Rachel's heart pounds, and she stands up just as Puck speaks. "I'm going."
"Like hell you are," Santana growls, jumping to her feet. "All of you have treated her like shit. Britt and I are going in."
"And you haven't?" Mercedes snaps.
"I've been there more than anyone else has," Santana says, but her eyes are on Rachel. It's an admission, an acknowledgement.
"We've all been awful to each other on more than one occasion," Mike says lowly before anyone else can say anything.
The sad thing is that he's right, and they all know it.
"Seniority then," Santana growls. "Quinn's always been my girl even when we're fighting."
Santana marches over with Brittany following, their hands grasped tightly together and brokering no more arguments. They hesitate before walking into the room, and Rachel watches as Santana's shoulders rise and fall with a single deep breath before stepping inside.
Silence reigns among their group, and Rachel stares at the door that gets closed behind them.
The secondhand ticks on.
The door opens, not at all gently, and Santana barges out, eyes red and shining. Brittany follows, and the evidence of her tears is even more pronounced in her blue gaze. Rachel jumps to her feet this time. She's in front of the door to Quinn's room in a heartbeat near Santana and Brittany, and she's not even quite sure how she got there.
"How is she?" Finn asks as he catches up to her.
"Fuck you," Santana hisses.
Finn draws back, but Rachel feels no heat in Santana's curse. Only fear and distress and superficial anger because Rachel knows Santana well enough to know that anger is easy for her. Anger can hide other, more painful things. Rachel wants to say something, but it was her wedding, and her texts, and her insistence. The weight of it is almost impossible to carry (but she has to, she has to carry it because it is hers), and she knows Santana will only have anger for her too. Brittany pulls Santana away, wrapping her up in her arms, and cooing into her ear.
And Finn is beside her. He's real. Tangible.
She doesn't touch him.
Instead, she hovers at the door to Quinn's hospital room, and then walks in without a word to anyone else.
She barely acknowledges the nurse hovering around Quinn. She knows it would be polite to announce her presence, but Rachel can't bring herself to tear her attention away from Quinn for even a moment now that she's before her. If she looks away, she's terrified Quinn won't be there when she looks back.
And it hurts to look at Quinn, to bear witness to the injuries. The angry bruising, the red cuts, the surgical wraps, the IV, the tubes.
It's worse than she imagined. It all feels like a hospital drama suddenly come to life in Lima with the pretty young woman horrifically injured and fighting for her life. But it's all terrifyingly real. What scares her the most is the pallor of Quinn's face and figure.
The silent paleness whispers of death.
Rachel thinks the steady beep of the heart monitor is the most beautiful sound in the world.
The secondhand keeps ticking. Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury are taking their turn in Quinn's room, but a number of them can't bring themselves to leave the hospital even though they all know it could be days before Quinn wakes up. They sit in the tiny cafeteria. Normal visiting hours are still some time away.
Around her, they talk, and it's about good things. It's one of those moments where glee club really does feel like a family.
Rachel doesn't speak a word. But no one seems to really be his or her self right now. There's still something comforting about the group of them, all here together. It's when the conversation lags, and they all reflect again on exactly where they are, that it becomes hard to look at anyone.
What she wants above all right now is to be besides Quinn. But it's not her place, not her time. No matter how much she wants to be the one telling Quinn that she's going to be okay. She lost that right if she ever had it to begin with.
She stares off at the TV hanging in the corner of the cafeteria. The local news is playing its early morning segment. The sound is off, but closed captions run across the bottom of the screen. If she tries hard enough and squints just right, she can read the yellowed words. But her mind is elsewhere, on Quinn, and all the things she could have done different, and all the things she wants to do different because of Quinn. Because Quinn is special. Extraordinary.
It startles her when the screen switches from the comforting mediocrity of the Lima newsroom to an early evening skyline. The on scene reporter stares grimly into the camera, but behind her are the flashing lights of a fire truck and a police car, a large truck with a dented front, and the crushed remains of a small red car.
It takes her a second to realize that the small red car is actually a Volkswagen. It takes her another second to realize that the Volkswagen is Quinn's. She latches onto Finn's arm with a death grip because he's the closet to her. A whimper escapes from the back of her throat, but her sudden movement and noise is enough to draw scrutiny to what captured her attention.
The rest of the glee club falls silent, staring at the screen as it returns to the newsroom and the closed captions running underneath. "Miss Fabray was in critical condition when she was pulled from the wreckage of her vehicle and taken to Lima Memorial. Our thoughts are with her. You can expect no further delays at the intersection."
"Fuck," Puck says, the word hard and biting. He runs a hand through his mohawk, and his next word is a subdued mutter. "Quinn…"
Rachel swallows down her distress, but can't bring her self to speak for whole new reasons. She's sure if she lets go, releasing anything, everything she is will tumble out.
She buries her head into her arms on the table, drawing in on herself. The secondhand keeps circling, and no one moves around her. Her breathing evens out, and she thinks Quinn before falling asleep.
She dreams of an infinite expanse of gray and the ticking sound of a clock.
They all have to leave the hospital eventually. School means nothing, but she has to go. Her dads say it will be good for her. It's a lie.
She's at the hospital every hour she's not sleeping or at school. The first day she's gone, Quinn's moved out of the ICU. It's a relief, and she halfway expects Quinn to wake immediately. She doesn't.
Rachel learns that Quinn wakes, really wakes, on her fifth day in the hospital. Ms. Fabray sends a text to Ms. Lopez who then sends a text to Santana. And that's how Rachel finds herself speeding to the hospital with Santana and Brittany, skipping their afternoon classes for the day. They charge in, making enough of a scene to draw the attention of the nurses on Quinn's floor. One nurse heads them off before they burst into Quinn's room.
"Stay calm," the nurse says. "She's going to be out of it."
The nurse moves aside, and the door to Quinn's room yawns an opening. Suddenly, Rachel's nervous, but Santana presses on with hardly a glance to the nurse. Brittany follows behind, leaving Rachel alone outside.
Rachel steels herself, and then steps into Quinn's room.
It's not enough.
Quinn lies there, beautiful and broken. She's pale (not like death, not anymore). Shaking. She's crying. Silent.
Quinn's eyes fall on her, and they're bright from her tears. Rachel's certain her heart stops beating because, with eyes on her, Quinn seems cognizant.
Ms. Fabray doesn't seem to know what to do with herself. She ripples through the room, insubstantial. It's Brittany who gives her meaning. "It's okay," she whispers. Rachel remembers how smart Brittany can be at times as Ms. Fabray nods her head sharply, her strength fading even with that.
It's Brittany who strides forward, taking Ms. Fabray's place and Quinn's hand. "It hurts?" she says.
Rachel is frozen by the eyes on her, but Quinn finally releases her from her gaze. Rachel's heart pounds. Someone sucks in a breath, and she thinks it must be her for a moment. Then she realizes it's actually Santana who stands with her arms wrapped around herself.
"It hurts," Quinn chokes. "Then nothing."
Rachel knows Quinn's talking about her legs. She knows Quinn hates to be seen as weak. She knows Quinn hurts. She watches a nurse change out the IV, and watches the drugs pump into Quinn's blood. Quinn calms, her eyes droop. She sleeps. And then Rachel hurts. Really hurts.
She backs out of the room. She calls Finn to come pick her up. He does. She cries the whole way home.
Days pass and then weeks.
Rachel continues to dream in gray.
She can't bring herself to see Quinn again. She hears about the recovery process instead. About Quinn sleeping and sleeping. The morphine and stirring into half-consciousness. Quinn goes back into surgery three separate times. Then it's more of Quinn awake and coherent then Quinn sleepy and out of it. Rachel's putting on her shoes and halfway out the door before she retreats back into her room too many instances to count.
She throws herself into her schoolwork and glee and preparing for her NYADA audition. Then there's Finn, and she's not even sure what to make of that. It's all wonderfully distracting and stressful, even if Quinn is always there, lurking in the back of her mind.
And then, one day, just like that, Quinn is back in school. She's smiling and warm and alive, and Rachel goes on autopilot. She holds it together until the glee club meeting in the library, and she holds it together until she's back home, safe in her room. She thinks about Quinn's hand in hers, calloused and strong. She remembers the way Quinn's hand flexed, the way her fingers felt tightening the hold.
She allows herself to cry for only a few more minutes because her NYADA audition is literally right around the corner.
She has to be perfect.
Her day finally arrives, and she wakes to a gray sky. She thinks about Finn and Kurt. She thinks about Quinn. The morning flies by and soon the afternoon goes with it.
She feels like she blinks only to find herself standing in front of Carmen Tibideaux.
The music comes easily. "Don't Rain on My Parade" is her song. She can sing it backwards, double-tempo, in her dreams. She owns the first few bars and knows it will go smoothly the rest of the way. Her audition will go just like she always imagined it. NYADA and New York are waiting for her. Then…
The lyrics are stolen from the tip of her tongue.
Apologies and platitudes flow without difficulty.
Her heart pounds. She breathes. She tries again.
She can feel the lyrics coming wrong this time. She tries to stop them, tries to correct herself. She only succeeds in hitting the wrong note.
Her opportunity is gone, and she's left in darkness on the stage.
She finds herself frozen. The darkness bleeds into gray.
It is done.
A/N: If you made it through, thanks for reading! Chapter 2 will be uploaded in a day or two. Considering this chapter is an extension of a previous fic, I think it's only fair that I advance the plot a little bit with a quick update.