A/N: Alright, this is a story that has plagued me for awhile now and I really wanted to write it. If any of my little darlings are coming to read this from Dark Running, then I love you very much, and yes, updating will continue for the other story as well. Before you all ask, Quinntana is endgame. This is a story about Quinn's life, and before you read anything, this chapter is based on Quinn in middle school as Lucy Fabray. Enjoy(:
I was also thinking about who I should pair Rachel with? There's a poll open on my profile if you'd like to vote(:
I would just like to take a moment and thank my new beta, Crabapplekid89, for catching some of the errors in this chapter.
Also, I would like to thank my mom for helping me start out the story and catching some plot mistakes as well.
Take My Breath Away
Chapter One: Flashback
"Don't fight it, just give into it," he muttered into her ear as he lowers his pants and begins to thrust into her.
She whimpers and turns her head to the side as his breath pounds against her cheek. She closes her eyes, willing the tears to subside as she thinks about the events that brought her to this point.
"Now, Lucy, be sure to come home right after school," Judy Fabray tells her thirteen year old daughter as she pulls her purple coat on.
"Yes, mother," Lucy replies, lifting up her backpack and sliding it onto her shoulders. Lucy takes a scarf down from the coat rack and wraps it around her neck and mouth, careful not to get it caught on her braces.
She opens the front door and heads out on her way to school. As she walks, her shoulders slump further and further as she gets closer and closer to Belleview Middle School, knowing what was waiting for her when she stepped through the front doors. The only thing keeping her sane was the fact that she knew her dad was getting a new job soon and they would have to move to Lima over the summer. Just one more year, she thought to herself.
The school came into view and she shuddered, clearly not from the cold weather surrounding her. The young girl walks closer to the school and visibly deflates when she sees Rachel Winters and her friends standing in the courtyard, gossiping in their uggs with their boobs as far out as they can be with those push up bras.
Lucy walks quickly towards the doors of the school, desperately praying that she can avoid the girls, but her prayers go unanswered as she hears one of the girls, Jessica, call out, "Well, if it isn't Lucy Caboosey! Damn, we were all hoping you did us a favor and offed yourself already," Lucy stops in her tracks and turns around to face the girls who are approaching her. "It would benefit everyone here. No one wants to see your fugly ass around here anymore."
The girls come within a foot of her, making a circle, closing in on her. This time Rachel speaks, "Did you really think you could show up here without us knowing?" Rachel raises a fist and she's about ready to deliver a blow to Lucy's stomach when the bell rings and the girls all look up. Thankful for the distraction, Lucy takes that opportunity to dash inside the school, knowing that she needs to find a way to get out of the school when it's over so she doesn't run into them.
Lucy walks toward the pod where her core classes are and she slips into her advanced algebra class, which is her first class of the day. She takes her seat at the front of the class and opens her folder to pull out last night's homework. The misfit looks at the clock and sees that she has around three minutes before class starts. She taps her foot impatiently, wanting school to start so it can be over as soon as possible.
During Algebra, she focuses intently on her work, and jumps; startled at the bell that has just rung. She packs up her things and waits for every student to exit the class before she makes her way out of the door and to her Health class, which was just across the hall. As she goes, Rachel and her girls walk past her, discretely tripping her and then pretending not to notice when she falls to the ground, her books splaying across the floor. Lucy pushes herself up and walks into her Health class.
Lucy is focused on drawing and labeling the bones in the human body when all of the sudden, she feels an explosion of ice cold liquid poor over her head and down her face seeping into her clothes.
"Oh, I am so sorry," Lucy looks up to see another one of Rachel's minions, Daniella, smirking above her. "Miss Maggie, I accidentally tripped and spilled my water all over Lucy," she says in a sickeningly sweet voice, "May I go help her clean herself off?"
The teacher looks up and surveys the damage, "Of course, Daniella."
Daniella pulls Lucy up, almost being nice about it, if it wasn't for the vice grip she had on Lucy's arm. When they get to the bathroom, Lucy saw that Rachel and the rest of her gang are waiting in the bathroom. Lucy shrunk back towards the wall as Rachel got closer. "Now that we are alone…" Rachel speaks devilishly, raising her fist again much like the morning before, except this time, she lets it fly through the air, connecting with Lucy's stomach. The smaller girl tumbles to the ground gasping for air. "Now remember ladies, not the face. We don't need evidence."
The girls continue pummeling into Lucy's body with their fists and feet connecting wherever they can. Lucy curls up into a ball on reflex, and prays to God as she does every time this happens. The kicks and punches continue to happen for another three minutes, but to Lucy it felt like thirty before she feels the girls stop and walk out of the restroom. The only sounds in the empty restroom are of Lucy gasping, whimpering, and then grunting as she lifts herself from the floor and makes her way to the mirror. She dries her tears and cleans her face from the previously spilled water.
She takes a deep breath and removes the purple coat she has kept on for the whole day. She usually keeps her coat on to try to cover up how chubby she is. The jacket falls away and Lucy gently lifts up her shirt, and she's greeted with the beginnings of bruises decorating her abdomen and back. She gingerly lowers her shirt back over her body and pulls her damp jacket back on.
By the time she reaches the classroom, the bell has rung and she packs up her things and heads to her next class. At least they came early today… She thinks to herself as she walks to her science class.
It was easy to sit through that class. Although she didn't have any friends, that class was one of the few classes she didn't have to worry about people hurting her in. She wrote down the notes about the Earth and its layers until the bell rang once again, signaling the end of her third class. She gets up and rushes to her drama class, the only class she really looks forward to. Even if the kids have to fake it when they act like they are friends, it still makes her happy. Playing someone other than herself is also so liberating for her.
She's the first one into the class, as always, and greets the teacher, "Hey, Mr. B.!" Lucy says with a genuine smile on her face.
"Well, if it isn't Lucy Q! How's your day been?" He replies. Mr. B. was probably the only person who respected Lucy and liked her for her personality and didn't judge her on her looks.
"Same old, same old," Lucy says, looking down at her feet.
Mr. B. comes over to Lucy and lays a comforting hand on her back; she flinches. He pulls his hand away as if he's been burned. "Lucy, what happened?"
She shrugs her shoulders and says, "Rachel and her minions were just giving me a hard time today. No big deal," Mr. B. knows he can't do anything about it unless Lucy decided to step forward and talk to someone about it. Lucy looks around the room and notices the cameras laid out on the desks, "What's the plan for today?"
Mr. B. claps his hands once and says, "Photography. I know that this is a drama class, but we still need some form of inspiration, so this might help open the mind to the beauty of the natural world."
Lucy smiles and grabs a camera. "Can I go now before they all come in here?" she asks, staring at the camera with a look of awe.
"Sure, Luce, go find your inspiration."
Lucy walks around the school reveling in the feeling of relaxation, knowing that nobody is wondering the halls and that she was safe for now, as long as she could avoid anyone she sees. She continues walking around when she notices the back doors to the school. Maybe I could leave that way, and circle around through the alleys to avoid Rachel, she thinks to herself. She walks to the door and cracks it open a bit.
She sees the dumpsters and the small alley that would lead her to the street next to the one she lives on. Lucy tries to avoid walking through alleys, because she has a fear of small spaces, but on bad days, like today, she's made it through the alley safe and sound and halfway home. It's a really nice shortcut, but her fear of small spaces prevents her from traveling that way more often.
She slips off her small converse shoe and puts it in the door so it won't close on her. The young girl gets her camera ready and takes a picture of the alleyway, noting the way the sun bounces off of the walls and the battle between the shadows and sunlight as the sun rises higher, claiming more territory. Putting her shoe back on, she walks through the door and back into the school. She wonders the hall a bit longer, taking pictures of various wall textures before heading back to the drama class a little earlier than the rest of the class would be getting back. She opens up the camera and takes the SD card out of it.
"Mr. B.? Can I take this home and load the pictures onto my computer? I'll bring it back tomorrow," she asks.
"Sure thing, Lucy," he smiles, "Go on and head to your next class to avoid the crowds."
Lucy smiles, thankful for a teacher like him when she heads to her next class, Spanish. She waits outside the door until the previous class files out and she walks in right after, sitting in her spot at the front of the class. The class goes on pretty normally. She's studied Spanish for a while, so it's pretty much an easy A for her. The bell rings and the part of the day she's been dreading most is upon her. Lunch.
She waits by her desk until the class has filed out of the room. She gets up and peeks out of the door, looking for the best route to the nearest bathroom. She sees the bathroom door down the hall and makes a break for it. Reaching it without incident she opens the door, thankful that it's empty and she locks herself in a handicap stall pulling out her homemade lunch from her backpack.
Inside her bag is some carrots and half of a ham sandwich. Of course, her mom packs her lunch, keeping Lucy to the strict diet they have just started her on. She's finished her lunch in about ten minutes, taking sips from her water bottle between bites when she hears the bathroom door open.
"She's such a pig!" The first voice says.
"I know! I can't even imagine living like that, I would just kill myself," The second voice comments right after.
"I hope she does. Fucking Lucy Fabray, no wonder she has no friends," The first voice replies right after.
"I know right? She'll never even have a boyfriend."
"Speaking of boyfriends, how did last night go with Johnny?"
"It hurt at first, but then it was amazing!"
"O.M.G. no way!"
The girls continue talking as they walk out of the door after fixing their makeup. Silent tears fall down Lucy's face after listening to the words the two girls spoke. The sad thing is, she believed every single word. The bell rang and signaled the end of lunch, so she packed up and headed out of the bathroom to her Social Studies class.
Once in there, she sat through the Civil War notes and as soon as the bell rang she went to her last class, Language Arts.
They started reading the Diary of Anne Frank in class, except it was the play version, so they were assigned parts. Lucy got Margot, and every time she talked, she felt judging eyes on her. All she really wanted to do was run away from everyone in the class.
Her stomach leaped when the bell rang and she took off towards the back doors of the school. She ran out of the school and waited a couple minutes to see if anyone was following her. When the coast was clear she headed down the alleyway.
About halfway down the alley, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She flipped around to see a man in a Spiderman mask holding a knife up to her.
"Don't move," he whispered into her ear. He backed her up against the wall and when Lucy tried to squirm to get free, he punched her in the stomach, making her keel over especially with the bruises already there. He unzipped her coat and pulled it off, next unbuttoning and unzipping her pants, pulling them down to her thighs along with her underwear. Once again, Lucy tried to squirm free, but this time, he used his knife to go under her shirt and make a deep gash on the side of her stomach. "Don't fight it, just give into it."
She was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard a low groan and the weight of the man pushed down on her. She felt the warm liquid of the man's essence spill into her. The next thing she knows she's on the ground and the man is taking off down the street.
Lucy sits there for around eight minutes, gathering her thoughts. Tears streak down her face and she makes to get up, but her hand shoots to her side, putting pressure against the injury on her stomach. As she stands up, she uses her free hand to pull up her pants and underwear and she slowly makes her way to her house, stumbling with the weight of her backpack.
When she makes it through the door, her mother rushes over to her. "Where have you been?!" Judy scolds her child. Lucy pulls her hand away from her side, and Judy sees the blood. "Russell!"
Russell Fabray stalks into the foyer, stopping when he sees the blood. "What happened?" he asks in a bored tone. He walks over to his daughter, hesitant to touch her. Russell has always wanted the perfect family and when Lucy was born, his dreams were shattered as she grew up to look like an outsider.
"R-rape," Lucy manages to get out through her sobs. She crumples to the ground, holding her side as she continues to cry.
Russell scoffs at his daughter, and then looks to his wife. "Get her cleaned up and put her to bed."
Judy looks at him for a minute, the expression in his face making her nod and bring Lucy into the kitchen, cleaning up the gash on her side, taping gauze onto her side. When that's done, she helps Lucy into her room, gets her undressed and then dressed into her pajamas. "Go to sleep, sweetie," Judy says to her daughter when she kisses her forehead and starts to walk out of the door.
The neglect of her parents make her cry harder, but eventually her sobs tire her out and she cries herself to sleep.
Two weeks later, she notices her period hasn't come when it's supposed to. She's forced to think back to the 'situation' which is what she's decided to call it, and remembers the feeling of the man's essence spilling into her.
Lucy goes to the only person she's knows to trust in her family. "Frannie?" Lucy walks into her sister room. The older Fabray is currently doing her homework at her desk. She turns around and smiles at her younger sister.
"What's going on, Luce?" she asks when she notices the tear streaks down her sister's face. "Is it about the situation?" Lucy nods. "Did you have another nightmare?" Lucy shakes her head. "What is it, bun?"
Lucy walks closer to her sister and takes deep breaths before telling her sister. "I'm late."
It takes Frannie about five seconds to realize what Lucy meant, but then her eyes go wide. "Are you sure?" Lucy just sobs harder. "Okay, bunny, okay, let's go to the store and get a test for you." She puts her arms around her younger sister's shoulders and steers her down the stairs, careful to mind her parents.
"Where do you think you're going?" comes a booming voice across the hall. Frannie turns and sees her father approaching.
She puts Lucy behind her and talks with a heavily practiced steady voice, "Just to the store, daddy. I need some pencils and Luce wanted to come along."
Russell seems to think this over and then walks away, seemingly okay with the lie Frannie used. The older sister ushers Lucy into her car and drives to the store. As soon as she pays for the test and pencils, they unbox the pregnancy test and use the store's restroom.
Two minutes pass and they stare at the blue plus sign. The most unholy cross either of them have ever seen. The two sisters sulk out to the car and they both sit in the driveway for what seems like an eternity. "We have to tell them," Frannie mutters, closing her eyes, "Just stay behind me, okay?" Lucy nods at her sister, and they both get out of the car.
Once into the house, they walk into the living room where the two parents are sitting. "Mommy? Daddy? We have something to tell you," Frannie says in the high pitched voice only resigned for her parents. Lucy shuffles behind her sister when the two adults sit up at attention, "Lucy is a week late for her period, and so we went to get a test done."
Russell's eyes have flared up with a fire and he bellows, "YOU LIED TO ME!" Russell gets up and gets into Frannie's personal space.
She puts her hands out slightly to keep a small amount of distance. "Now, daddy, we didn't want to say anything until we knew for sure," Lucy curls into Frannie, clinging on to her for support when she knows the next words out of Frannie's mouth, "She's pregnant."
Russell's eyes dart down to Lucy, and he reaches to grab her, but Frannie stops his arm movement. He glances up at his eldest and uses a nervously calm voice, "Let go of me."
"No, daddy, don't hurt Lucy, it's not her fault."
"Of course it is! If she were stronger, this never would have happened!" Russell makes to grab Lucy, but her sister is resistant.
"Daddy, you could hurt the baby."
This makes Russell pause. The family didn't believe in abortions in any way, so he pulled back his hand and looked directly at Lucy. "You are not to go to school anymore, I can't have this getting out or our image will be ruined," Lucy frantically nods her head at him, agreeing to whatever he says so she won't get hurt. "You will be homeschooled until you have this abomination."
"Yes, daddy," Lucy says quietly.