Journey

As soon as the music stopped and the applause began, Quinn was making a run for it. She hadn't felt right all since she woke up this morning, but she couldn't let the team down, not today, not when there was so much at stake. New Directions had just finished performing their mash-up of songs at Regionals and personally, she couldn't be happier that it was finally over. About half-way through the performance, Quinn had been lifted into a spin by Mike and felt a searing pain shoot through her abdomen. The severity of it had knocked the wind out of her momentarily and she'd caught Puck looking at her in concern from the other side of the stage.

Luckily, the feeling had dissipated as quickly as it had come and she'd soldiered on, but as the number continued, the pain had returned with the full force that it had initially struck. This carried on throughout the rest of the song, waves of excruciating pain followed by sweet and short lived relief until finally the song had finished.

As she reached the vacated foyer, Quinn put her hand to her mouth as a wave of nausea overcame her. This cannot be happening, she thought to herself as she suppressed the urge to throw up, I'm not due for another 3 weeks.

"Quinn?" Miss Pillsbury said, pulling the teenager out of her thoughts and making her jump back in alarm. "Are you feeling alright? I saw you leave suddenly and wanted to check everything is ok."

"Fine," Quinn managed to say quickly before another excruciating pain seared through her abdomen.

Miss Pillsbury looked at her for a moment, concern evident on her face. "Maybe you should sit down for a minute?" she suggested taking in the heavily pregnant girl in front of her. "I'll get you something to drink."

"No," Quinn replied, fighting back another wave of nausea. "I'm ok, I just…I need to use the restroom quickly before the results, that's all."

Quinn began to move off in the direction of the nearest restroom, but Miss Pillsbury held her in place with a gentle tug of her hand.

"Quinn," she said softly, "you don't look very well, are you sure everything is alright?"

In that moment, Quinn wanted to tell the guidance councillor everything, how she was scared to death that the baby was finally coming, how she wasn't ready for this yet, that she still hadn't decided what she was going to do once the baby was born. Just as she opened her mouth to finally express all that she'd kept locked up inside of her for so long, another wave of nausea passed over her and a pain, so excruciating that she felt like she was being ripped in two cut through her.

Quinn's breath caught in her throat and she reached for her abdomen with her hands, praying for the relief that would soon follow, but it never came.

"What's wrong?" Miss Pillsbury asked anxiously, "Quinn….are you having contractions?"

The blonde tried to take in a deep breath to fight the haziness that was pushing in around the edges of her eyes, making her head swim. Mrs Pillsbury's voice sounded far away as she said her name again, worry etched on her face.

"Something's wrong," Quinn finally managed to gasp before she collapsed in a heap on the floor below, her head connecting with the tiles in a sickening sound.

"Quinn!" Emma shouted, crouching beside the teenager and brushing the hair out of the blondes' eyes so that she could look at her properly. Beneath her fingers, Quinn felt cold and clammy; a small pool of blood could be seen forming at her temple, the red invading the pure white of the tiles.

From his position behind the reception desk, a young man came running over to help and bent down beside Emma as she stroked the side of Quinn's face gently, calling to the girl, trying to wake her.

"Is she alright?" he asked, looking anxious as Quinn began to stir before them.

"No," Emma said worriedly, noticing a much larger pool of blood forming between Quinn's legs. "We need an ambulance."

When the young man remained frozen in place, Emma shouted at him, "Now!"

The sudden change in tone shocked the man into action and he ran back towards the desk to call 911.

Emma continued to stroke Quinn's' face, ignoring the blood which had grown into a pool so big that she was now kneeling in it. For the first time since she was younger, Emma didn't' care about the mess, her thoughts, her concerns were solely focused on the girl in front of her. From the auditorium behind her, Emma could hear the noise of excitable voices, the buzz of small talk amongst the audience whilst the judges deliberated the results in privacy.

Quinn started to stir once more, her eyes fluttering open, a confused expression on her face. "Miss Pillsbury?" she managed to say, her hand reaching slightly for the red haired woman.

"I'm here," she replied, taking Quinn's hand in hers. "Everything is going to be ok. You'll see."

Author's Note:

Since the back 9 has started airing, Quinn's pregnancy storyline has kind of been pushed to the side a little and although it is supposed to re-emerge in the season finale I don't hold out much hope that it'll play a huge part in it. So I thought, because I was bored and for some reason oddly inspired, that I would write a story around the baby's birth, beyond and all the drama in between. I'm both an F/Q and P/Q fan so this could go either way but any preferences then let me know.

Chapter two hopefully up soon!