A/N Future Fic / AU / Character DEATH / hints of FF attraction/Angst warning

I don't own Glee or any of its characters

No More Regrets

She woke up in the bed of the seedy hotel room naked and disgusted with herself. She grabbed a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand, lit it and took a long drag before noticing the $50 he had left next to the cigarette pack and laughed bitterly.

Bill, Don, Ron, whoever the fuck he was; Christ, it's no wonder he mistook her for a whore; she sure acted like one. She cringed as thoughts of last evening at the bar flashed back to her, laughing too loudly and rubbing against him as she excused herself to use the restroom; the not so subtle resting of her hand on his crotch as she leaned over and whispered drunkenly in his ear.

Oh fuck, did she really do a drunken oversexed version of Fever on the karaoke stage. It was official; she had become a more disgusting version of her mother.

She sat up gingerly trying to focus her eyes, head pounding and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The blonde moaned lightly as she put both feet on the floor and her head in both of her hands and stared down at the floor.

She saw the particles of dust dancing in the filtered hazy sunlight and wondered if it was dusk or dawn. She honestly couldn't remember, then again, she honestly didn't care. She knew what she had to do. Already had made the decision really, just needed to find a little courage to follow through.

She lifted an eyebrow and smirked at the irony, "yeah cuz courage and follow through are so clearly two of my strongest personality traits!"

Seeing the bottle lying on its side on the floor next to the bed she leaned over and picked it up, nearly full, good that meant she wouldn't have to leave the room.

She grabbed the Jack Daniels and pulled a long pull from the bottle, feeling it burn like fire. That meant she was far too sober for her liking. She had some catching up to do, before the past and her regrets caught up with her again.

Seeing Rachel Berry accept that award on the television was what had started this whole chain of events. She was not quite drunk yet and sitting on the barstool when she heard that name announced and it pulled her attention from her drink to the flat screen over the bar.

Of course she knew she was up for the stupid award, it was all anyone in fucking Lima could seem to talk about. Like anyone even knew Rachel when she was here in Ohio, like anyone even cared about her when they had her in their presence.

They sure cared now, local girl makes good. Not a big surprise though to the select few who really knew Rachel, her fellow New Direction members, they had always known. They had seen she was different, and they had punished her for it unmercifully. Well, at least I did, she thought bitterly.

She watched as the camera swept over her hopeful face with the rest of the nominees and the blonde thought she never looked more beautiful, more innocent, and more pure.

She watched as Rachel's name was announced as the winner and then saw her turn and hug her dad and daddy and gracefully walk up the aisle to the podium. The blonde swallowed a lump in her throat and was amazed she felt no bitterness only a surprising sense of pride in the still slight young woman.

She didn't look a decade older at all and the blonde quickly swept her hazel eyes to the mirror behind the bottles and cringed a little at how much she had changed by comparison. She gulped her drink, motioned for another and glanced back to observe Rachel Berry.

She listened to her musical lilting voice thank a bunch of unfamiliar people and her fathers and surprisingly Shelby and Beth then watched with interest as the brunette stopped speaking and looked anxious and hesitant. Saw real tears glisten in the beautiful chocolate big doe eyes as she nervously fluttered her lashes.

She watched her shift uncomfortably on her feet at the podium before clearing her throat and saying, "And lastly, I would like to thank Quinn Fabray, because I can honestly say, without her I would never have been tough enough to survive in New York City or this crazy business, thank you and good night!" She gave a big dazzling smile, a nervous bob of her head and swept offstage.

The blonde at the bar felt all the air forcefully leave her lungs as if someone had sucker punched her. "Well good for her," she would have said worse had she been in Rachel's Manolo Blahnik's, about a whole lot of people.

Only Rachel could insult someone and make it look and sound like a compliment.

That had been the beginning of another binge for the blonde. In one instant, pain had filled her heart squeezing out any remaining hostility and leaving only regret. The feeling was so strong she struggled to breathe as her past flooded over her in wave after wave of guilt and shame and remorse.

At first she remembered every rude name, obscene drawing and hostile insult; every petty jealousy came back and played over and over in her mind in living color and perfect stereo.

She remembered every time she had rebuffed and sneered at the olive branch the diva had always extended, whether during her pregnancy, after her parents abandoned her, after she gave up Beth, after the loss at Nationals, after her final horrific break with Santana, after her complete mental breakdown and she joined the Skanks, after she had lost and destroyed every single friendship that had ever meant anything to her at all. Rachel had always stood there with an understanding look on her face and her hand held out in friendship, and Quinn had always slapped her down.

Even the most embarrassing time, two years ago in December; when she had been very drunk and had slipped on the dance floor and fell; her so-called girlfriend had walked off in disgust and left her sitting in a heap on the floor.

She felt a warm arm on hers gently lift her up and she came face to face with the kind and amiable face of her lifelong nemesis. The blonde had sneered at her and slapped her hands away and said nastily, "Will I ever get rid of you?" and watched as the brunette's sweet face fell.

That had been the last time she had seen Rachel Berry in person.

"I bet if I had her phone number and called her tonight, she'd take the call!" She thought bitterly, "well she always was the bigger person!"

The blonde had never uttered a kind word to the girl, not once since the first realization that Rachel Berry was better than her and always would be. The young girl she used to be and young woman she was now could never bury the jealousy that threatened to choke her every time she realized that Rachel was secure and free and liked herself.

Quinn was always a fucked up, insecure shell of a human, terrified to feel, pushing away intimacy because she knew, her own family didn't love her, not her mother, not that prick Russell, and if the people who HAD to love you couldn't, no friend or stranger ever would. Not for the real you, not the you that made mistakes, not the person that taunted you in your head night after night. No one would ever love that person.

The drunk, the life of the party, the slut, they all loved that person, too bad she wasn't the real you either.

Trusting anyone ever again was certainly out of the question and never worth the risk.

She wanted to explain that to Rachel, that she was really just protecting the innocent diva because everything and everyone a Fabray touched or loved just always turned to shit. She just never had the courage to look into those big chocolate eyes and say the words.

So she settled for one night stands and casual no name drunken encounters with men and women because it's all she could ever have and it was certainly more than she really deserved. She had always known that, why couldn't someone as smart as Rachel see it.

She shook herself out of her dark thoughts and got up to take a shower.

She turned on the radio next to the bed and the beautiful voice of Rachel Berry's new song filled the room. Smiling softly she thought, "how fitting!" as she hummed along to the song.

It took about an hour to blow dry and curl her hair and fix her makeup. God, she hated mirrors and avoided them at all cost. You could hide the ravages of age and alcohol in them with the proper makeup but she couldn't hide the dead look in her eyes anymore.

She stared at herself for a minute and wondered if there was someone she should call, someone she could call and realized there was not one person she knew that would want to hear from her. All those bridges had burned a long long time ago.

"Oh well, onward and hopefully upward my girl, no more regrets! " She went into the other room and sat down and wrote out two quick notes.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The two cops were sitting in the squad car in the parking lot of the Dunkin Donuts sipping their midday coffee and idly watching the traffic drive by them.

"So what made you become a cop, Puckerman?" the young rookie said to his older partner.

"A misspent youth, an interfering music teacher and a little blonde girl named Beth!" smirked the handsome dark haired cop.

The rookie looked at him questioningly and was about to ask more questions when they got a call over the radio, "Car 5, we have a 10-56 reported over at the Lima Gardens Motel on Pearl St. do you copy?"

"Jesus, not another one at that dump." Noah groaned. His day was just starting and he was feeling good today. He had gotten breakfast in bed from his beautiful wife and had wrestled his toddler namesake out of his pj's and into clothes and then walked his little look alike daughter to preschool before driving into work.

Being part of the Lima Police Department was the best thing that had happened to him besides his family. He loved his job and he loved helping people. It was a long way since his stints in juvie, that's for sure!

He had run into Lopez in the hallway, "oh excuse me," he thought smirking, "Detective Lopez Ma'am." They had talked about Brittany and the new baby due any day now and his Jew-babe Berry winning that award two nights ago and laughed fondly about some old Glee Club memories and some crazyRachel stories before both closing off and getting uncomfortable about Quinn.

"Have you seen her lately San, has Britt heard anything?" Noah finally asked uneasily.

Santana huffed angrily, "of course I haven't, Britt tried last Christmas and even called that abusive bitch of an ex -girlfriend of Q's but nothing and I am not using police resources to find her Puck, she knows where we are if she wants us."

They had joked some more about Rachel Berry and headed off to work.

Noah hated suicides, they left him unsettled for days at a time so he sent his partner into Room 9 and lingered half in and half out of the door talking to the nervous and obviously upset cleaning woman who kept resorting to her native language, whatever that was.

Noah almost laughed out loud at the green tinged face of his rookie partner as he walked out of the motel room, "definitely a 10-56, she left notes, dressed herself up like a model and lay down on the bed to die holding a picture, empty pill bottles all over the nightstand and an empty fifth of Jack Daniels, from what I can see, she used to be quite a looker too, damn shame! "

"We got ID?" Noah sighed.

"Purse and wallet, let's see, driver's license says, Quinn Fabray, 28 years old, lives at …."

Noah grabbed the wallet out of his stunned partner's hand, "oh no, Jesus Christ, no, no, no, no.." he moaned as he looked at the driver's license and raced into the room and sank stunned next to the bed.

She was holding the year book picture of the Glee Club, the one where she was pregnant and wearing that pretty yellow baby doll dress, she was standing between him and Rachel and everyone was smiling. They all looked so fucking young! She was still stunning lying on this bed in this seedy dump. He started to softly cry.

"What the fuck Puckerman?" his partner said quietly.

"Paul, get on the com and get Lopez over here, don't tell her anything except that Puck needs her and that's it, you got me?" Noah said quietly never taking his eyes off the blonde on the bed, "Nothing else Paul, I fucking mean it!"

"I got it Noah, I got it!" his partner quietly said exiting the room.

"Oh my fucking God Q, really? You could have called me, you could have called San or Britt, we always loved you, stupid bitch, stupid hard headed, selfish bitch." Noah sobbed as he gently reached a shaking hand out to smooth the golden blonde hair off her forehead, before the cop instinct took over and knew he couldn't touch her.

Sniffing harshly and trying to keep control, he stood up and went over to the two notes on the table.

The first was to Beth and it read simply in her messy loopy handwriting Noah instantly recognized, "I have always loved you, please believe me!"

The second was to Rachel and it read simply, "I have always loved you, please believe me!"

Noah walked out the motel room door in a daze and threw up in the bushes. He sat down on his haunches, held his head in his hands and wept for the hazel eyed, talented blonde beauty whose virginity he had so carelessly taken, whose life he had so recklessly helped shatter so long ago when they were both mere children.

He hung his head and cried for broken dreams, shattered souls and lost hope as he waited for Santana Lopez to arrive.

The End