'WHERE ARE YOU?'
Rachel sets her phone back on the table, turning in exasperation towards Finn, who stands in front of her, hands swinging back and forth and rocking on his heels.
"Rachel," He says. "Our slot, we - five minutes -"
"I'm not starting without Quinn," She takes a shaky breath. "She'll be here," She says to Santana, whose eyebrow is raised. "She's coming."
She glances at the clock again, wringing her hands and sliding them down the front of her white dress. She walks back over to her phone, looking at the message she sent Quinn three minutes ago.
"Rachel!" Finn says, desperation in his voice. "We have to -" He gestures to the door wildly and Rachel turns to Santana, who shrugs slightly with a look that says 'I told you so.'
"I-okay," She breathes out finally, letting a smile cross her face as she looks at Finn. "Okay let's...I'm ready."
Rachel can't help but feel a small bit of betrayal as she steps slowly down the aisle. Quinn said she would be here. She promised she would. She pulled Rachel into a hug and told her that she would be here.
Without Quinn off to the side, walking down the aisle has lost some of its appeal.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to in the sight of God to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony..."
Rachel looks towards the door discreetly, hoping to catch a glimpse of pink and blonde sliding through the door, wearing a sheepish smile and apologizing profusely but...nothing.
"Do you, Finn Hudson, take Rachel Berry as your wife?"
A lopsided smile flits across his face. "I do,"
"And do you, Rachel Berry, take Finn Hudson as your husband?"
"I-I do, yes," Finn's smile drops a fraction.
"Therefore, if any man can show any just cause, why they may not be lawfully joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter hold his peace,"
Hiram jumps up, "I-!"
"Guys," Will comes in out of breath, clutching a cell phone in his hand. "There's been an accident," he pants. "It's - it's Quinn."
Rachel freezes, everything around her slowing down into nothing and she feels like she's drowning. The air rushes out of her lungs and before anyone has a chance to react she's on the floor, a heap of body parts and white material.
"Rachel!" Finn darts forward, kneeling in front of her.
"Berry," Santana's clutching at her arm. "Berry, you okay?"
"Hospital," she manages to choke. Her throat feels constricted. "Hospital, Santana. I - Quinn. Quinn."
Santana hauls her to her feet, Brittany coming up on her other side to assist her out to the car.
"Keys," She says to Santana. "I - the keys - we need - "
"Here," She unlocks the door and Brittany comes up behind Rachel, pulling her head to her shoulder and rubbing her back. Rachel doesn't realize she's been crying until she feels her own tears and snot slick her own face and Brittany's shoulder.
Brittany pulls her into the back seat and Santana slides into the driver's side, starting the car and breaking every speed limit there is on their way to the hospital.
x
Quinn.
That's the only thing Rachel can think of when she see's the white of the hospital all around her. Quinn, and how Quinn doesn't need to be in a place like this, not now, and how it was her fault that she was her in the first place.
If she had just been a little more patient. If she had waited a little - just a little while longer - she would be a her wedding right now. But the right version of the wedding - the one where Quinn is watching in a pink bridesmaids dress off to the side - not the one where she stutters on her 'I do's.
x
Texting and driving.
That's the reason Quinn got into the accident that shattered 6 ribs, almost punctured her lung, and gave her a concussion. Suddenly, the smell of medicine and sick people is too much for Rachel. She's up, out of her seat, and puking in the trashcan, Brittany holding her hair and rubbing circles on her back, trying to soothe away the sickness and the guilt and how downright terrible Rachel feels right now.
Visiting hours have long been over, and though it took quite a bit of begging on Rachel, Santana, and Brittany's part, Russell took care of it by making a generous donation.
She tries to shake her guilt by blaming Finn. If he hadn't been rushing her, she wouldn't have felt the need to text Quinn as frantically as she did. But as much as she tries to admit it, it was her fault - if not more - than it was Finn's.
She wanted (needed) Quinn there too much.
She wants everything too much.
x
A doctor walks out, a chart under his arm, at four-nineteen in the morning.
"How is she?" All three of the girls ask at the same time.
"She's...alive," he says. "She needed minor surgery for her ribs, and the swelling in her brain has gone down, but..."
Rachel waits with baited breath, her heart hammering in her throat.
"I - she's paralyzed from the waist down," He flips through the chart.
"Is - is it...permanent?" Rachel asks.
"We're...not sure." He gives her a small, sad smile and puts a gentle hand on her shoulder and they sag. "You can go see her now, if you want."
Rachel sprints to the room number the doctor gives her and she slams to a stop in the doorway, looking at Quinn lying helpless in a hospital bed, bandages wrapped around her head and the sheets tucked neatly under her armpits.
She has to clap a hand to her mouth to muffle the pain-filled squeak that squeezes its way out of her throat. Tears spill over her out of her eyes and down her face, getting caught in the gaps of her hand that's still pressed to her mouth.
Brittany's hand is on her lower back and is guiding her shaking body into the room and into a chair near her bed seconds later. Santana follows and makes a bee-line to the other side of the bed, immediately gripping the hand that's resting on top of the sheets.
Santana takes a shaky breath, and Rachel watches as she squeezes Quinn's hand, trying to ignore the IV that's sticking out of it.
"Jesus Q," Is all Santana manages before she breaks down just like Rachel, shoulders shaking and salty tears dripping everywhere; down he chin, onto her shirt and the scratchy hospital sheets.
Then all three of them are crying; Rachel because Quinn, Santana, because of Quinn, and Brittany because Quinn and because she's never seen Santana actually, truly cry. Not like this.
x
The first thing Quinn says isn't as dramatic as she expected, but Rachel could honestly care less because, Jesus, Quinn is awake.
"Water," Quinn's voice is scratchy and low but its pitch-perfect to Rachel. She's been waiting to hear that voice for the past two days.
"Rachel?" Quinn says, her eyes sliding shut again once she's downed two and a half styrofoam cups of water.
"Mmm?" Rachel brushes her fingers over the back of Quinn's hand. "I'm here, Quinn." A lump forms in her throat and she chokes back tears unsuccessfully. "Right here."
She's in the middle of re-reading last weeks US Weekly when she hears "Rachel?"
She looks up, and Quinn shifts as much as she can without hurting herself before she clears her throat. "Did I - was the wedding...how was it?"
"There was no wedding, Quinn,"
"Why? Because of me?"
She's far from blaming her, but Quinn asked, so Rachel gives her a straight answer, "Yes,"
A long pause, and then. "I'm sorry,"
Rachel's eyes snap to her sharply. "Don't - you have nothing to apologize for,"
"I do," Quinn prods at the IV sticking out of her hand. "I kind of ruined your wedding, didn't I?" A dry laugh escapes her and she winces.
"No - my main concern is not 'the-wedding-that-could-have-been', Quinn. It's you. Making sure you get better. Making sure you're okay."
Something flits across Quinn's face, but before Rachel can figure what, the hand in hers is returning the pressure and Rachel's smile is being returned, accompanied by the unshed tears shining in hazel eyes.
Quinn falls asleep minutes later, Rachel's hand clutched tightly in hers. It's like she was still awake.
x
Quinn is discharged three days later, body bandage-free and lap full of flowers and 'get well soon' cards. Judy rolls her to the end of the hall where Rachel, Santana, and Brittany are waiting.
"Nice wheels, Q,"
"Thanks," She takes an experimental roll forward and sighs. "This'll take some getting used to."
"You and Artie can be like, wheelchair buddies," Brittany says, and excited smile on her face. "And whenever someone makes fun of you, you guys can just run over their toes, or something."
"Or something," Quinn's amused.
"As long as you don't join the A/V club or whatever," Santana says, though lightly, putting her hand on Quinn's shoulder.
"How long will you...you know," Rachel gestures at the wheelchair. She feels childish. She can't even think 'paralyzed' without her eyes getting misty.
Quinn shrugs. "A few weeks. Months, maybe. They're...not really sure,"
Weeks. Months. Quinn. In a wheelchair for an unknown amount of time, because of her.
Hugging someone in a wheelchair is a difficult thing to do. Rachel's lower back screams at her, but her arms are around Quinn's neck for the third time in her life, and when Quinn's hand snakes up and lands on her back, she can't help but breathe out a string of 'i'm sorry, so, so, sorry' into Quinn's ear.
"Don't," Quinn says quietly. "You have nothing to apologize for."
Rachel doesn't sleep that night. She can't. It might as well be impossible, because every time she closes her eyes she sees her text of 'WHERE ARE YOU?' burning behind her eyelids. And instead of the beep she usually hears when she gets a new text message, she hears the harsh honking of a horn and a sickening crunch of metal.
It's not guilt. She knows what guilt feels like, and this isn't it.
Not quite.
x
A/N: I might continue this, might not. Let me know what you think?
