Warnings: Abuse, domestic violence.

Prologue

…

Small, that's how she feels as she sits on the large dining table by herself. She is short in stature but she never really cared; only now it's not her height that makes her small and sometimes insignificant, it's her entire life altogether.

She feels unattached, not only from the world outside but from herself as well. Nothing feels right and Rachel can see that nothing played out as it was supposed to after all. Her faith was always misplaced, her feelings never enough and forgiveness was never an option, it seems.

She holds a glass with red wine in her hands, although the experience of drinking seems foreign, her skin doesn't feel like hers at all and it hasn't for a while. She feels empty, trivial and betrayed.

She's wearing one of her wife's favorite shirts and it should feel right, it should feel good to have her wife's perfume all over her but it doesn't, and it hasn't for a very long time. Every pore of her body screams the rejection, the goosebumps in her extremities beg her to take off the cotton item and she starts shaking –uncontrollably- the wine in the glass almost spills as fear creeps into her like fog at down.

The fear is something she never managed to hide well, even after all those acting classes and years of experiencing it first handed.

If she had only been brave, if she had only had the power to walk away, to leave while she still could go without the permanent scars that now will always stain her existence no matter what she does, if she had only done something, anything, she wouldn't be a personal slave in a life that shouldn't be hers.

But in the end it was her who didn't want to leave, who stayed, who had faith.

The house looks immaculate and it sickens her to no end to think about how hard she still tries. Fresh roses are in the vases, the furniture is dusted, windows and floors are spotless and shining, fresh and clean air envelops the entire house and still, she feels sick to her stomach and beyond exhausted, both physically and mentally. The house is flawless and her wife's favorite meal has been cooked but nothing feels right even though it seems to be.

Three kids later and she finally is about to do something. She dropped them at her parents' house to spend the night with the weak bravery that a few papers in a yellow envelop had given her a couple of hours ago.

It's going to be bad and that bravery is nowhere to be found anymore. A war under the roof of their house, it will all come down in the same place they spent the last decade creating a family. Nothing will hold them back; there will be no excuses to stop, to be quiet or considerate and the thought alone is terrifying.

The divorce papers are on top of the fridge, Rachel will wait until her wife has finished her meal to give them to her. It will be for the best, she hopes.

Faces we see, hearts we take guesses. She was her first love, her first kiss, her first girlfriend and many other firsts followed after that. No one wants to think there is evil in the people that they love; no one is capable to see darkness when all they can do is love.

People often surrenders, refuses to see what is right if from of them when a heavy cloud of love fogs their eyes and their minds, sometimes they see but they don't acknowledge it in fear that whatever is happening will come to an end. We are used to ignore the bad and praise the good, it's a perseverance mechanism that every human being possesses. It helps us all to cope.

In Rachel's case it was both, she couldn't see because she was in love. Everything about their relationship was perfect, meant to be. When they got married she could see it, she saw everything clearly but she had faith, faith in their love, in their family, in a future that now will now never come.

Her wife is not entirely to blame, Rachel accepts that but neither is she. Their marriage, their problems, the abuse and the tension comes down to both of them; they chose to stay together even though it was obviously the wrong choice. The divorce? It had been difficult, the most difficult decision of her life.

She sips the wine, letting the bitter taste to help her swallow the lump in her throat. Never in her life has a decision caused so much pain as when she walked inside her lawyer's office to file for a divorce three weeks ago.

Mr. Lane didn't ask many questions as a history showed itself on her face because her wife hadn't been careful enough the night before and the angry bruises on both of her eyes were telling enough, the bruise on her torso and arms had also been photographed and filled. She felt embarrassed, meaningless, that day she was nothing more than another statistic in abused women and now she would become another statistic of single parents and failed marriages.

The night plays out in her mind, fresh in memory and jumping at any given opportunity, just like her wife intended it in the first place.

The morning after it was a deciding moment and Rachel finally had the guts to file for divorce after six years of having the idea dancing in her head.

She knew her wife would do whatever it takes to have their children with her and that's where Rachel really felt scared. Her wife was one of the best lawyers in town, her firm being the most known in all the East Coast, she obviously knew what to do as far as the law was involved.

But divorce is no longer just an idea and even though the word and everything that accompanies it scares her to death, she stands firmly and determined, heartbroken but decided. She's not changing her mind this time.

She is aware that no one will ever want her again, nor she wants to be with anyone else for that matter, she is well aware of the pain that her children will have to go through because as bad as her wife is with her she has never shown that side of her personality to their children.

If anyone would ask the three kids about their mommy they would always answer with words like 'funny', 'amazing', 'best mom ever' and more of the sort, and Rachel knows they'll resent her in some way for the decision she's made.

With the glass of wine in her hands her mind wonders one more time to the past and no matter how many times she tries she can never remember when or how everything started, how she became a weak woman, another victim and in many ways a slave and even a professional liar to her family, a friendless person. Yet, she still loves her. After going through hell and back, and gone to hell again she doesn't have a better excuse, she can't lie. She's still in love, scared to death but madly in love of a memory.

She's dependent and to an extend she's aware of it, it's the reason why she's still in that house. Rachel knows that her wife loves her as well, so much more than she led on and that's why they work, that's why they're still together after all. They love each other and after the divorce they'll be nothing without the other.

And that's why she's terrified, because she knows what she represents in her wife's life, what their children represent and especially because she knows her wife and she knows what she's capable of and all the extends she will go to be close to their kids.

She sips the wine again, the bittersweet liquid sliding down her throat slowly. Her parents don't know, they aren't aware of what is going on, not because of lack of interest but because Rachel is an amazing actress after all –her Tony award proves it- and that's how she prefers it due to her parents protectiveness of her, she is conscious that her parents wouldn't have let her stay with her wife if they knew of their situation.

If she had only had the courage to picture a life without her, if she had only let her parents know or anybody; if she had only been able to live without her she wouldn't be shaking, her hands wouldn't be sweaty with each passing second that brings her wife closer to home.

The soft sound of a car pulling over makes her jump from the chair, almost knocking it back, her heart starts racing as the glass shakes with ferocity in her hands. She swallows a sob when she realizes that she's rushing to the sink and throwing the wine, washing the glass quickly and drinking water to hide the smell on her breath.

She wants to cry, run and hide but a part of herself also feels relieved that her wife has come home soon, that her wife is choosing to spend the night at home and not out there, wherever it is she stays and does when she doesn't make it home for dinner.

In a masochist and insane way, Rachel feels glad when she hears the car closing and a set of keys fumbling on the front door. The sounds are familiar and comforting in a way that tells her that she's not alone, someone still wants her, loves her.

The fear creeps again and it's definitely stronger than the gladness once she sees a cloth on the dining table. She rushes to get it just as the door opens and her wife walks inside.

Quinn Fabray still carries herself with the same amount of control and superiority that she had ten years ago when they met in high school.

The blonde doesn't spare her nervous wife a look as she drops her keys and suitcase on a nearby chair or as she takes off her expensive coat and throws it on the back of another.

When Rachel rushes to get the coat, Quinn finally looks up and stares at her intently. She can almost smell the fear on Rachel's actions and she follows her as the smaller woman hangs her coat on the hallway closet with care. She hates the way Rachel's hands shake when she returns but doesn't mention it, in a way she's come to expect it.

She stares at the brunette and disappointment quickly rushes through her, not in her wife but in herself, and when Rachel tries to swallow a lump in her throat she sees red.

"Hi" the smaller woman manages to speak even though the tension is enough to cut through iron at the moment. She feels judged, insignificant and low.

Quinn is perfect in her eyes; she has the physic of a supermodel and built muscle where it should be. Rachel can easily see why girls throw themselves at her wife and she wonders for the millionth time, why did Quinn marry her in the first place?

"Why are you staring?" Quinn hisses the question before rolling her eyes and huffing, consciously ignoring the welling tears and shrinking state of the brunette.

"I'm sorry"

"My shirt looks nice on you. I like it when you wear my clothes" she states and a small smile escapes her as she loses herself in the image of her wife, the woman she loves.

"It smells like you. I was missing you."

The 'I was missing you too' never leaves Quinn's mouth but it stays stuck between her teeth and she lowers her gaze instead.

Rachel almost jumps back as Quinn walks closer to her but before she can even react the blonde has a hold of both of her arms in a tight grip and soft lips are pressing against her tense ones. As expected, Quinn doesn't lose her grip until Rachel has returned the kiss.

"Don't-" Quinn shakes her head before she finally turns around and looks up the stairs, bluntly pushing Rachel away. She has all the power she can imagine between these four walls, all she ever wanted materially, half of her dreams are yet to be reached and all of them revolve around the woman standing behind her, fearing her. If she could only turn back time.

"Where are the kids?"

"My parents stopped by and took them to spend the night. Is that okay?"

Apart from the deadly cold stare, Rachel doesn't receive an answer. She knows her wife adores her kids and don't finding them home is just asking for trouble.

The emptiness in her stomach is one step from making Rachel sick but somehow she manages to smile again, push the shame to the back of her mind and walk to the oven to get her wife's dinner.

"I made your favorite" she smiles, wishing against hope to get approval that doesn't come.

"I can see that" Quinn is already sat at the head of the table, her white shirt folded up to her elbows as she sips the white wine that's been served for her.

As Quinn starts eating, Rachel allows herself to smile despise all odds because Quinn always loved her cooking, even now.

"How was your day?"

"It was alright. Some idiot almost made me lose my patience but nothing out of the ordinary there" her hazel eyes momentarily find Rachel's shy ones and the brunette feels ashamed again, the pun definitely understood.

"What happened?"

"Lana, Santana's secretary? She lost some papers on a case and as you can imagine Santana lost it and made the girl look in the entire building before fire her but the dumbass couldn't just leave and that's when I lost it. At the end we had security remove her from the building but not before causing an entire scene"

"I thought Mary was Santana's secretary?"

"I fired her about a month ago, I swear Santana has a thing for dumb girls with no job experience whatsoever"

"Maybe she's just looking for an unfound talent"

"Maybe, but that wasn't all, after lunch I had to sit and watch how a wife's client beg the guy not to take their kids. Quite a scene she put up, with tears, sobs and muffled cries of desperation and all. Ridiculous!"

"Are they getting a divorce?" Rachel softly asks receiving a nod from her wife, who's still eating. "They won't share custody?"

When Quinn looks up and smirks at her direction, Rachel's skin grows goosebumps and she sits up straight in her chair. After ten years of marriage she has come to know her wife pretty well and she knows exactly when Quinn is being malicious, like she is right now.

"It won't be a fair share, the woman doesn't really have much money to raise three kids and my client is a well-known producer in town, it won't be a financial issue for him or even a struggle. They singed a prenuptial agreement so no one gets half of anything."

The threat is there, Rachel can smell it.

"So what happens now?"

"Easy, I'll present the case, the jury will agree with us, they'll see that the woman is an unfit parent and practically broke, and my client will walk away with his three kids and his fortune untouched"

"But that will be unfair"

"How come?"

"Do you really think it's okay for a woman to lose her children in a custody battle?"

"They're not just hers and I will rather have my kids with food on their table than with an unfit parent that can barely feed them"

"You mean your client"

"Same analogy" the blonde shrugs and continues eating, like what she said isn't actually a threat or like she actually has no idea of what is waiting for her above the fridge in a yellow envelop. But she knows, she knows everything.

"Why does he want the kids? If he's as successful as you say then he's not home quite often"

"So?"

"So, my question is why? Why does he want the kids?"

"He wants to show her a lesson. She's nothing without him, just some useless excuse of a human being that doesn't have the courage to stand up for herself, she's not the woman he married all those years ago and he just wants her to wake up. He wants her to fight back."

"Show her a lesson? By taking away her kids?"

"Their kids!" she's not talking about her client, Rachel knows it but she can't drop the discussion, not even when she knows that she's not going to be the one standing when it's over.

"The guy has money, a nice girlfriend who treats him good and has a personality of her own. He loves his kids and he wants to give them everything and anything they want and need and he wouldn't be able to do that if he doesn't have them with him, now would he?"

The quirk eyebrow is a tell and Rachel's breath hitches because she realizes that Quinn knows, she knows what she is going to do, she knows about the divorce. How?

"Money isn't everything"

"What do you mean?"

"Money isn't everything in a marriage" her voice comes strangled and Quinn sets her fork on her plate to really look at her.

"And you would know that, wouldn't you?"

"I do" she locks eyes with Quinn and for a moment she thinks about backing down, pick up the plate and wash it, get away from the blonde but it's too late. Rachel should know better than to have an opinion, Quinn's taught her better.

"Without money you have no place to live, no food on your table, no education for your children, tell me Rachel. What do you mean by money isn't everything?" her voice echoes in the house by the force of it and for a second Rachel is frozen but then she remembers, when Quinn asks a question she expects an answer.

"What about love?" she feels so stupid and naïve for saying it but her stare doesn't falter and Quinn lifts her chin in the air as she sets down her glass of wine after taking a slow sip. Her superiority is visible, Rachel is nothing compared to her, nothing.

"What about it? You are happy if you have what you need to live a good life. Don't you have a good life with me, with us?"

"I do"

"Then why would you mention that you're not?"

"I didn't"

"You should be congratulating yourself" Quinn says in an irritated tone and Rachel can't ignore the sudden panic that rises within her.

"What?" her voice shakes along with her entire body.

"You always find a way to provoke me when we're alone."

Quinn's eyes don't leave hers as she drinks the last of her wine and puts the glass on the table before she stands up and walks towards Rachel.

She wants to run, she should run but for some reason she stays on her chair, her heart beating so hard inside her chest that she can hear it in her ears. She's the lamb and Quinn is definitely the lion.

In a moment of sanity Rachel wonders if Quinn would be able to get her before she can reach the front door.

She knows that she can. She always can.

It terrifies her.

"I'm sorry" the apologize falls out of her mouth out instinctively and shaky and she squeezes her mouth shut as Quinn grabs a hold of her arm and roughly pushes her into the living room and onto the large couch. The blonde crawls on top of her, breathing extremely hard on her face as she rubs herself on her wife.

"We should make the most out of this alone time, don't you think?"

Rachel cries softly and nods her answer, giving her wife the green light to do whatever she has in mind. She swallows the sobs as Quinn undresses her, she squishes her eyes shut as her wife's mouth kisses her shaking body.

"You like it, don't you? You've always liked me doing this to you" her fingers are teasing her inner thighs as she undoes her pants with her free hand.

"You like me manhandling you like this, especially when we do this, don't you love?"

"Y-yes" Rachel shudders and her breath hitches as Quinn enters her with a swift thrust of her hips.

"God, you still feel as good as when we were seventeen. I love you"

"I love you too."

And it's always declarations of love that make Quinn snap out of whatever state she's currently in and tonight is no exception.

"Did you tell her the same when she was fucking you?" all thrusting had stopped as Rachel chastises herself, even though she knows that she didn't do anything wrong.

"Answer me!"

"No, I didn't"

"Did you think about me when she was buried deep inside of you? Huh!"

"I'm sorry" Rachel cries and Quinn reassumes her thrusting, this time Rachel losses her breath and all sense of intimacy is lost when her insides start feeling like they're being rip to pieces.

"Fuck, you disgust me! You fucking disgust me!" she pulls out and gets away from her naked wife on the couch, "I hate what you did, I hate that you let her touched you like you did!"

"Please" Rachel begs but Quinn has her pinned to the floor already and before she can utter a second word a hard slap meets her face and for a moment she sees fire behind her eyelids but she doesn't have time to think about it when a second and a third slap hit her rapidly.

"Did you actually think that I don't know? That some nobody would keep this away from me? She came to my office the same day you went to hers, darling. She told me everything, she showed me the pictures, she even helped me burn them but she still did all the paper work because I told her to go ahead and help you."

Deep down Rachel had allowed herself to believe, but even deeper down she knew it was worthless.

"I know you got the papers today, where are they?"

So she gets the papers, reads them in silence as Rachel observes from the floor where she's still crying. Quinn shakes her head here and there, and when she's done she picks her wife up from the floor and helps her standing up by pulling her hair.

"Do you really think I'd give her the satisfaction to see us getting a divorce? That I'd give her the chance she has so desperately been wishing for since we left high school to make a move on you? Do you think you've seen the worst in me, love?"

She grabs a hold of Rachel's chin and lifts her up as she throws the papers on the floor. Her lips ghost over Rachel's as she stares in her eyes.

"Don't do anything stupid again, I won't leave you and you won't leave me. I love you and you know why I do what I do. Snap out of it, damn it! When are you going to snap out of it? When?!"

A part of Rachel, as small as it is makes her believe that Quinn is ashamed of everything, that there is hope to hold onto to.

"She will never have you, never. You're mine as I'm yours, alright?" the desperation lacing Quinn's tone is enough to make Rachel's heart ache because she did this, she was the one who broke them all those years ago.

"Let's go to bed?" she asks and Quinn pecks her lips as she wraps her up in a warm embrace as they walk up the stairs. She won't leave this place, she's tried, hasn't she? She won't ever leave Quinn's side.

…