AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm so thrilled by the positive reception of this story so far! Thank you so much to everyone who has read (and especially those of you who took the time to review!) so far, and I hope this chapter was worth the wait (although some of you who have read my other pieces a.k.a. switchfoot13, Musical'n'MagicFreak, evilmojojojo, etc. know that this is pretty quick for me, LOL)! More will be posted soon(ish)!
DISCLAIMER: Sadly, I own nothing pertaining to GLEE or any of its components. If I did, it'd be gayer than it already is, and let's face it -- that's pretty gay!
"Quinn!" Rachel's voice sounded down the hallway, flying on the tips of her toes after Quinn, who was shamelessly lapping her, even with child.
Arms folded in an X tightly across her chest, the withdrawn blonde couldn't believe she had just said those words out loud. She had vowed to keep the ugly truth about what had happened confined within the chambers of her heart without as much as a second thought, but there was something about Rachel that got under her skin, that permeated her resolve like no one else. She barely had the time to consider what she had disclosed when she was startled by her wrist being yanked away from her body.
"What the -"
"You're going to have to hate me for this later, because right now we need to talk," spoke the voice of the very subject of her thoughts. Rachel looked around and used their convenient proximity to the choir room to her advantage as she dragged a reluctant Quinn in behind her.
Before a word could be spoken, both pairs of eyes fell on Will, who was sitting at the piano, penning notes as he was plunking them out.
"Hey again, Girls," Will said before eyeing the wall clock. "Shouldn't you be at lunch?"
"Mr. Schuester, if you would excuse us. Quinn and I need to speak in private."
"Um, I'm sorry, Rachel, I'm working on a new piece for sectionals, and... not to sound childish, but I was here first."
But there was no way the starlet would back down now. "We need an environment free of the bustle and barbarism of the cafeteria, and this is the only practical place to do it. So, unless you'd like to sit here and engage with us in a rousing conversation about the anatomical changes that Quinn is sure to endure in the next several months of her pregnancy, including the enlargement of her breasts and the halting of her menstrual cycle, I'd find a new spot."
Too uncomfortable to realize he had totally just been played, Will faltered for his sheet music before packing it up. "I'll be in the teacher's lounge if... anyone needs me."
As she watched Mr. Schue walk to the door, it occurred to Rachel that now she and Quinn would actually be alone. While that was all she wanted a few moments ago, suddenly words were failing to find her, especially after she had said such hurtful and wrong things to the other girl. Ordinarily, the ingénue would be willing to go to the mat for a stance of hers or to defend even an incorrect judgment she had made, but not now; now she just wished she could go back.
Rachel stood near the piano, Quinn near the door. The second hand on the clock had easily signified the passing of a minute that they spent in silence before Quinn simply couldn't take it anymore.
"Look, spare me the kum-bay-ya intervention and just forget I said anything. You don't need to pretend to like me all of a sudden just because you feel sorry for me," the blonde surrendered, hand in the air and headed for the door.
"You can't ignore this and I can't, either. Puck raped you!" Rachel shouted after her.
Quinn turned around, and it was clear that she had stumbled to the end of her wits, tears streaming from her eyes as fast as the hormones were streaming through her changing body. "And what you do you want me to do about that, huh?! Do you want me to wear it like a badge? Let everyone feel sorry for the poor, dumb slut who got knocked up by her boyfriend's best friend? Should I be feeling proud that I trusted him enough to not wonder why the drink he gave me tasted weird? Can you answer any of those questions for me?"
Rachel couldn't. The only thing she could do was grit her teeth so hard that air had trouble escaping in a futile attempt not to cry, to be strong.
But Quinn's carrying on wasn't helping her attempts. "Even when I woke up, barely clothed and... sore and disoriented with him just laying there next to me, I thought at first, 'No... this didn't happen, Puck wouldn't do that.' Well, all it took was one look at his smug face to know that he did, and I just left. I didn't yell, I didn't push him, I didn't say anything. And now he thinks he can talk to me and carry on like nothing happened, and it just - I - I just don't know how much longer I can do this!"
The doll-like beauty's emotions had hit her like a tidal wave, overcoming her quickly and relentlessly as she struggled just to stay on her feet. Rachel noticed the quiver in her legs and rushed over to the other side of the piano, reluctantly leading her to sit down on the bench. Relieved to see that Quinn neglected to push her away, the brunette sat down at a safe distance next to her. All the movement dislodged a silent tear from her brown eyes, but she quickly wiped it away before Quinn, whose face was being covered by her hands, could see it.
Rachel inhaled sharply and released it slowly, trying to remove any and all judgment from her voice and replace it instead with compassion and concern. "Why -- why don't you tell someone? Report him?"
"Oh, please, like it's that easy," Quinn replied spitefully, setting in a motion a fast-paced back-and-forth battle of gratified cynicism versus naive hope.
"Quinn, this is serious! You can't let him get away with this!"
"I can't let him get away with this? Why do I have to be responsible for any of this?"
"Because something tells me that he's not going to surrender himself to the police!"
"Yeah, well that's probably the only way anything would be done about it anyway. My dad used to be a lawyer, and believe me, the justice system is far from perfect. There are a lot of impossible hoops to jump through just to have your case fall through or for a guilty person to walk away with a slap on the wrist," Quinn stated matter-of-factly, rounding out the argument for cynicism.
Rachel's brown eyes were wide and misty as they locked with Quinn's, determined to give hope one last shot. "But don't you think it's worth a try?"
"God, you just don't understand, do you?"
"No, and I want you to make me understand!"
Quinn closed her eyes and tried to release any and all frustration in the form of a loud sigh. She couldn't ignore the genuine earnestness ingrained in the other girl's features, and even in her seemingly never ending pain, Rachel's concern made her feel less alone. "Maybe I want the little bit of my life that I have left to stay the way that it is after all of this! Do you think that's going to happen if I cause some high-profile scandal with one of the most popular guys at school. It would be chaos, and that's if anyone even believed me."
The bewildered brunette had a feeling her next question would make her sound further naive, but even if so, it was one she had to ask. "Why would anyone not believe you?"
"It happens all the time, Rachel. People don't want to accept the truth, the hurt that comes with knowing that someone you once liked or thought was decent could... do something so terrible to someone, and so they look for a loophole, a way to convince themselves that it's not true. Someone to blame who's not the one person at fault, and that usually ends up being the victim," the cheerleader lamented.
This time, Rachel didn't have the presence of mind to hide the tears that fell freely from her eyes, and she didn't care enough to regret it. She paused to find her voice before saying, "Well, for what it's worth, I believe you. Wholeheartedly."
"I know you do," Quinn spoke softly, daring to look into Rachel's shimmering eyes before a pulling in her stomach compelled her to look away. "Besides, whether he believed me or not, it would devastate Finn, destroy him, even. And I couldn't do that. I don't know if he'd even understand."
Rachel sympathized. "He is a bit..."
"...dumber than a box of hair?"
"Yes. And you're, surprisingly, I'll admit, very intelligent. You're articulate and thoughtful and I can tell that you're academically-minded regardless of the fact that you sometimes dumb yourself down as to not stand out too much. So, I guess I'm a little confused; I'd be lying to say that I ever really thought you and Finn to be right for each other."
"Things with Finn are -- easy and convenient and..."
"Normal and acceptable, I get it."
A pang of hurt that disguised itself as anger appeared on the blonde's face. "That's not fair, Rachel, you don't know what it's like!"
"You're right, I don't know what it's like, because I've never been normal or popular or anything like that. The majority of McKinley think that I'm... a weird, irritating, loser with unrealistic and lame dreams, and if I tried, I could be... pretty and interesting and blend in, but it wouldn't be honest. It wouldn't be who I am, and I can't do that. I won't."
For the first time in their exchange, Quinn was quiet, having no choice but to be rendered speechless by the truth in Rachel's words. If nothing else but to save face, she conjured up something to respond with.
"To your credit, it does take a brave soul to stand up to a slushee-flinging jock," Quinn said, followed by a small, yet sufficient giggle.
A feeling of relief likewise startled a quiet laugh out of Rachel. "I guess so," she agreed coyly, "Although pretending that I don't mind as the frozen sugar crystallizes to the roots of my hair isn't exactly brave."
The taller girl absent-mindedly twisted a lock of the brunette's hair painlessly between her fingers. "Well, for the record -- you've always been pretty."
"What?" Rachel asked, a sudden heat consuming her cheeks.
Suddenly, Quinn was fumbling over her words. She was learning to blame just about anything uncharacteristic on her pregnancy hormones, but it often left her speechless and without much control. "Well, before you said that if you tried you could be pretty, but... you don't need to try. You've always been pretty. I mean, why else would I have... been threatened by you?"
A full-toothed smile was pushing full force at the corners of Rachel's mouth as she looked down at her fidgeting hands. "Well, while we're clearing things up, I'm not pretending to like you, Quinn. I've always known that there's something deeper there that you don't show anybody."
Unlike her theatrical counterpart, Quinn wore a softer, more humbled expression. She felt deep down that what Rachel had just said should have terrified her as it threatened the guard she set so firmly in place, but for some reason it didn't.
In the other girl's silence, Rachel nervously continued, refusing to get her hopes up too quickly. "I mean... if you don't want to talk to me when we're walking down the hall or in the locker room or even during Glee rehearsals, that's okay, I mean, we can pretend like nothing ever happened -"
"I'm not going to -"
" - but just so you know, I'll still be here for you if you need to talk. In private. Without anyone having to know..."
"Okay, no wonder you don't have any friends, no one can get a word in!" Quinn interrupted abruptly, stopping Rachel into a wide-eyed, closed-mouth hush. Before she could panic, Quinn's laugh made another cameo to signify that she was only kidding.
"I'm sorry, I've been told I can be overwhelming and slightly intense," Rachel remarked with a sheepish smile.
"It's okay, I didn't notice," Quinn replied in a light-hearted sarcasm that Rachel didn't understand. "Do you want to go see what's for lunch while there's still time?"
"Sure," Rachel replied a little too quickly, standing from the piano bench and smiling the same delighted smile.
Before Quinn could allow herself to be charmed by Rachel's genuine happiness or the chivalry she expressed by helping her up and moving the piano bench out of her way, she raised an eyebrow and put her arm to the side to stop the shorter girl in her tracks.
"But just so you know, if someone throws a slushee at me, I'm totally throwing you in the way."
This time Rachel did understand Quinn's -- half -- sarcasm, and smiled. "I figured as much."