Disclaimer: I own neither Glee nor any part thereof. No money is being made off of this story and is intended only for entertainment purposes; therefore it falls within the parameters of "Fair Use"
A/N: All I can say is Wow! I normally write for much more oddball pairings where I'm lucky to get 40-50 reviews for an entire 100,000 word story, so to get 14 in one day for one chapter is pretty overwhelming. You guys are awesome and I greatly appreciate all the feedback.
For those of you that have commented on it, I am new to the angst. My natural inclination as a writer is considerably more humorous and fluffy, so this is a challenge for me, but that was the purpose of this, to try something different. Hope everyone enjoys Chapter Two, although, fair warning: if you fell in love with Quinn's foul mouth, it's not here, you'll see why. It will be back.
Chapter Two
How Did We Get Here?
Quinn felt intensely stupid standing at the back of the auditorium watching the Glee Club perform some song she'd never heard. "What am I even doing here?" she mumbled to herself. She was kidding herself with that question though. She knew exactly what she was doing there. She came to hear Rachel sing, came to hear that voice that just tore right through her.
After years of horrible treatment as Lucy, Quinn hadn't just built walls around her heart but an entire labyrinth around it, complete with iron barred oak doors and titanium portcullises at every turn so that no one could touch her. The first full week of freshman year, she learned that someone knew some secret back way through the maze because Quinn couldn't keep her out. At first, Quinn didn't even know her name only that she was tiny and beautiful and she hummed to herself constantly when she wasn't talking… which was, admittedly, a lot. Quinn was envious of her ability to be that carefree all the time, and at first that's all Quinn had thought it was, envy.
The girl walked around as though she didn't have a care in the world. Quinn had many concerns. She'd made the Cheerios squad, but she only had a year to impress Coach Sylvester enough to make her Captain next year after Grace Hendrix, the current captain, graduated. She had to scout out the football players to see who the prospects for dating were, who was most likely to be quarterback in the coming years. Roping in the quarterback early would certainly help her prospects at the captain-ship. She also had to get top grades and have perfect attendance, all to impress her father.
After a week of watching her discreetly, Quinn had subtly inquired about the girl and found out her name was Rachel Barbara Berry. There were also some snide and hateful comments about her having gay parents or something like that but Quinn paid it no attention because she was just so enraptured with the girl and now she knew her name, a name that seemed entirely fitting to the little bit that Quinn knew about her. That afternoon, Quinn went home after Cheerios practice and quickly hit up Facebook to try to find out more about the girl.
When she found nothing there, she checked MySpace because in 2008 there were some people that still cared about MySpace, and sure enough there was Rachel Barbara Berry from Lima, Ohio and apparently the girl liked to vlog because there were over 100 videos posted on her page, not that this was surprising considering how talkative the girl was. Quinn found on one of them entitled "Don't Rain On My Parade" which she thought was a excellent sentiment, keeping your head high with others try to get you down. Curious as to what the Rachel had to say on the subject, which based on how much she talked at school, Quinn figured was a lot. She clicked on the link to the video and the chatty brunette on screen said, "Hello, World. I am Rachel Barbara Berry and today I will be singing for you one of my all time favorites by my idol and namesake, Ms Barbara Streisand. This is 'Don't Rain on My Parade.'" And the petite girl let loose her giant voice and Quinn was blown away. When the song was over, Quinn watched it again. Then she watched Rachel sing "Tonight" from West Side Story, "On My Own" from Les Miz, "Big Spender" from something called Sweet Charity, "A Moment Like This" by Kelly Clarkson, and "Love Story" by Taylor Swift.
When she was done, Quinn knew beyond certainty that her feelings about Rachel weren't envious but amorous. Surprisingly, that didn't freak her out like she thought it might. Quinn had seen enough of Brittany Pierce and Santana Lopez at Cheer Camp that summer to see them for what they were, even if they didn't see it themselves. She was well aware of The Church's stance on homosexuality, and through that, her father's opinion of it, so while she saw nothing sinful in what was between her new friends, she knew that she would never act on these feelings for Rachel... as much she may want to. Quinn lived and died on her father's approval. It was a harmless, stupid crush. It would go away on its own eventually.
So, Quinn, the ultimate compartmentalizer, pushed those feelings aside. She'd seen the movie A Beautiful Mind and at the end Russell Crowe's delusions were still there, he just chose not to talk to them anymore. That's how she was with Rachel and her feelings. Rachel still existed as did Quinn's feelings for her but the blonde just made a decision not to do anything about them. Eventually, she'd meet someone else and she'd get over the tiny diva. Okay, so maybe she still visited Rachel's MySpace page and listened to her sing, but the girl was a hell of a singer. Quinn listened to Pink and Beyonce too, didn't mean she was in love with them either. And okay, maybe on a couple of occasions she'd heard the original versions of songs that she'd heard Rachel sing and turned them off because they were ruining "Rachel's song" but sometimes an artist covers a song that outdoes the original and the cover artist kind of takes over the song. Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt" came to mind, not to mention Aretha's version of "Respect." And alright, maybe she couldn't get into making out with her boyfriend without one of "Rachel's songs" playing in the background. It didn't mean anything.
Quinn had no idea who had started tormenting Rachel in school. Presumably it was one of the underclassmen Cheerios. It definitely wasn't her but somehow Coach Sylvester got it in her that it had somehow been Quinn's plan and Quinn didn't do anything to dissuade her of that idea once she figured out that Coach liked it. When Coach brought it up the first time, Quinn thought she was being blamed for it and was scared to death that she was in trouble. Even after Sylvester had clarified that she liked the hounding of the girl, Quinn still felt like she was being blamed after all she cared about this girl. Even if society would let embrace that, she wasn't going to take out her frustrations on Rachel. She wasn't a monster for God's sake. But then Sue Sylvester put a target on the girl's back… literally. She printed off a bull's-eye on a piece of paper and taped it to Rachel's back like the cheerleading coach was a twelve year old boy or something. Quinn had discreetly retrieved it as soon as it was safe, but it was no use. Too many people had seen it on her. Coach Sylvester had thrown down the gauntlet. It was open season on Rachel Berry, and Quinn had to either keep pace with everyone else or risk getting shunted to the bottom of the pyramid.
Though it hurt her to do it, Quinn joined in, but she stuck steadfastly to her "Stick and Stones" rule. She would call her insulting and demeaning nicknames but she would never do anything to actually hurt Rachel. She wouldn't throw slushies nor sanction the throwing of them. She wouldn't push her around and she wouldn't physically intimidate her. She tried her best to stick to insults that she hoped Rachel knew weren't true or that she wouldn't actually be insulted by. She would call her RuPaul because in what way did the 5'2" Jewish girl resemble the 6 foot African American drag queen? She called her Yentl because that was the name of a character played by her idol in a movie directed by her idol. She was in effect calling her Barbara Streisand. She called her a hobbit and a dwarf, because sure they're both short but hobbits are kind, generous, decent, hard working people and dwarfs are brave, honorable, and fierce. She hoped Rachel understood.
So, okay, there may have been a flood of Cheerios, including Quinn, posting horrible comments on all of her MySpace videos, as well as her YouTube videos when the girl made the jump, but there was always one girl who would always praise her talents and encourage her to not let the naysayers get her down, one girl named Lucy. And while Quinn-as-Lucy's comments always stayed strictly about Rachel's talents, she may have, from time-to-time, written long florid love letters in the comment box, hundreds of words about the greatness and the beauty of Rachel Berry, the person, and her hand would hover over the send button for the better part of half an hour before she chickened out and cut the comment back to be strictly professional… and maybe that happened more that from time-to-time, possibly it was closer to every time.
At the end of freshman year, the look of pride on her father's face when she told him that she'd been made Head Cheerio for the subsequent year completely made up for all the emotions that she'd had to swallow that year... or so Quinn told herself. Summer was fun, really bonding with Brittany and Santana, but was over too fast, and sophomore year was upon them before they knew it.
When they got back there was a big scandal on the third day of school. Mr. Ryerson was accused of molesting a student and was suddenly out. Seemingly right at the same time her boyfriend, Finn Hudson, confided in her that he was failing Spanish. Quinn was dumbfounded as to how this was even possible since she knew for a fact that he cheated on every test. She would suspect that he was cheating off of Brittany but the ditzy blonde was fluent in Spanish because of her relationship with Santana. It was one of the few classes she didn't need tutoring to stay academically eligible for Cheerios. She was so furious at him even days later that when she saw him walking towards her in the hall she ducked through a door to avoid seeing him. If she'd been paying better attention she would had done a u-turn rather than go through the door because she had ducked into the auditorium. She'd spent all of last year going five minutes or more out of her way to avoid this room on the likely chance of finding Rachel here, and sure enough she was in there when Quinn ducked in. Mr. Schuester's there too, but Quinn literally didn't notice him at all. Rachel was singing and Quinn was transfixed. It was "On My Own" and Quinn had watched the video of this song dozens of times over the last year but it didn't begin to do Rachel justice. Quinn could only hazard a guess and say that maybe Rachel didn't have state-of-the-art recording equipment at home but she thought that it was more likely that capturing the essence and sheer beauty of Rachel Berry and her amazing voice on video is completely impossible. In the thousands of years of spoken language, Man had not yet invented words for how beautiful Rachel is on stage singing with all her considerable might. In that moment, Quinn knew though she might spend the rest of her life denying it but this was not some silly little crush. She was hardcore, head-over-heels in love with Rachel Barbara Berry.
After that, the hits just kept on coming. Finn had to join Glee to pass Spanish, so to stay on the football team he just had to sacrifice any social standing that he got by being on the team. She slipped into the auditorium when they're doing their first big number "Don't Stop Believin" and she knew Finn had to have picked that. She saw him making eyes at her Rachel and she felt sick. Quinn was not remotely unaware of how insane it was for her to call Rachel hers when the two had never had so much as a conversation with one another that wasn't to do with one of their classes, but then again the Land of Reason is not the providence of the jealous. Then they turned around and Quinn saw Rachel's face and she was every bit as smitten with him and then rather than puking, she just wanted to die. Finn Hudson is the complete opposite of everything Rachel deserves.
When Puck showed up that night with wine coolers she mistakenly thought he was her savior. Later, when she was laying under him getting jackhammered, bored nearly to tears and in pain she wondered why she gave into this moron when she never even came close to giving into the moron she was dating and when thoughts of the boy's Jewish heritage and who he shared that heritage crept into her mind, she bit the inside of her cheek to make the pain drive away that line of thinking before it went any further. His constant reassurances that she was not fat she could sort of mentally mangle until in her mind he was telling her, "You're not gay."
Then she was pregnant and she joined the Glee Club to try her best to keep Finn and Rachel apart. She told Finn that he's the father and feeds him some load of bullshit about him busting a nut in her hot tub and that getting her pregnant and the moron believes her. He was supposed to call bullshit on her and break up with her and accuse her of cheating and then she was supposed to change her story and say that they had sex so that he sounds like an asshole making up an excuse to dump his pregnant girlfriend. Surely that would have driven Rachel off of him for good, but he has to be a moron and believe her. To top that Puck was supposed to be thrilled that he was off the hook for the kid, not wanting to help her raise it, and then it got out that she's pregnant and she's kicked off the Cheerios and kicked out of her home and living with Finn and before she knew it, it was time for Sectionals and Rachel somehow finds out that Puck is the father and tells Finn. Quinn wasn't lying when she told Rachel that she was not mad at her for telling. She was glad that there were still decent, honest, and kind people left in the world, and since Quinn wasn't one of them, she was glad Rachel was. Quinn managed to ask Rachel to give her some alone time before she broke down and told her that she loves her. Rachel didn't need to hear that, not in the middle of all the other drama. When Rachel busted out "Don't Rain on My Parade" on the fly at Sectionals she was so amazing and so beautiful that Quinn couldn't help but cry, luckily she had baby hormones to blame it on.
After holiday break, Finn broke up with Rachel out of the blue apparently having it in his mind that he was the campus stud. When Rachel sang "Gives You Hell" to vent Quinn could barely mask her joy. Rachel then started seeing Jesse and for various reasons Quinn didn't see him as a threat, mostly because she knew they wouldn't last past the end of the year when Jesse was due to graduate. As it turned out is was sooner than that. Pregnancy occupied most of her attention although she did make time to go with Rachel to spy on Vocal Adrenaline and when Quinn saw their coach, she remembered thinking that she could easily be Rachel's mother, as it turned out she was right. Then before she knew it, it was Regionals and she was eight months pregnant and dancing and her mother was there asking her to come back home and she went into labor. The whole thing was a blur, but when Rachel's mom offered to adopt the baby, Quinn didn't hesitate for a second to say yes because… it was Rachel's mom and she was just like Rachel in nearly every way.
She spent the summer getting her body back into shape and she decided that she'd already lost two years pining after a girl that she wouldn't ever get to be with. It was time to let Rachel go. Her father was out of the way so that stumbling block was gone, but by then she was pretty convinced that Rachel would never reciprocate her feelings even if she did say something. Rachel was pretty clearly boy-crazy. In the last year she'd bounced from Finn to Puck to Finn to Jesse and back to Finn. Quinn was pretty certain Rachel was as straight as they came and even if she wasn't Quinn had been pretty thoroughly horrible to her for years so it was unlikely she'd ever want Quinn even if her door did swing this way. Of course, that couldn't stop her from agreeing to test Finn's commitment to Rachel. Even in trying to let her go, she still didn't want her wasting her time on that gorilla. When she met Sam she thought she finally had someone she could fall in love with, a nice, good looking, decent guy who basically thought the sun shone out of her ass. She really tried to give him her heart but the truth of it was that Quinn's heart hadn't been hers to give since the beginning of freshman year. When Sam offered her a promise ring only a month into their relationship she didn't want to lead the guy on but she didn't want to break his heart either and she didn't want to give up on the outside possibility that she could love him, so she took it.
When Finchel blew up just before Sectionals over the whole Finntana Deflowering Time Bomb, Quinn was once again happy since Santana hooking up with Finn just happened to be an idea that Quinn had put into Brittany's head almost a year earlier. By Christmas, Quinn knew she and Sam would never be, and she knew that there was a limited window between Finn and Rachel breaking up and Finn going after her again, so she decided to throw a spanner in the works and knowing that Finn loved chasing after what he thought he couldn't have, she kissed him after the State Championship game and then played hard to get so that he'd chase her for a while. Maybe she could use him to win Junior Prom Queen. She had no idea why she even still cared about that. Her father wasn't around to impress anymore, but for whatever reason she still wanted that crown.
The giving up on Rachel effort was going exactly nowhere, however. When the girls did the "Start Me Up/Livin on a Prayer" mash-up, the sight of Rachel in those absurdly tight leather pants required every last bit of willpower Quinn could summon to resist dragging her in Mr. Schuester's office and having her way with the tiny brunette. Quinn found herself rather disturbed at how turned on the sight of Rachel in football pads made her. On Valentine's Day, Artie sang the hell out of P.Y.T. to Brittany and Quinn thought that maybe, just maybe after all of her current entanglements ended and Brittany inevitably went back to Santana, that she should pursue Artie. He was a thoroughly decent guy, smart and funny. He would never leave her and never hurt her. By the end of the day she had herself almost fully convinced that Artie was someone that she could love. Then the next day Rachel sang the hell out of "Firework" by Katy Perry and Quinn couldn't have told you Artie's last name or his most distinctive physical feature. By the time she heard Rachel sing "Get it Right" at Regionals, she knew she'd never get over Rachel.
Quinn was utterly lost. She had no idea what to do. Her conflicting dreams of being Prom Queen and being with Rachel were driving her insane. When Finn broke Rachel's nose Quinn wanted to run to her and cradle her but she held off. When Rachel asked Quinn to go with her to the plastic surgeon she didn't want to because she thought Rachel was perfect like she was but she didn't want to say no either because… well, Rachel wanted to spend time with her. Quinn's best effort to dissuade her from the nose job without bringing their time together to an abrupt end was the "Warped View of the World" speech. It didn't seem to work, but when Rachel offered to sing a duet with Quinn in Glee, she really could have cared less. The night after, Quinn never slept so well in her whole life. She didn't want to jinx it by saying out loud but she thought she and Rachel were starting to become friends. Much to Quinn's horror, Lauren Zizes dug up her past as Lucy and plastered it all over the school. Much to her surprise, pretty much no one cared.
Then Prom Night came. All they had to do was get through the night, Quinn would win Prom Queen and then she could move on from her past and go after what she really wanted, Rachel. At the dance, the girl of her dreams did a blistering rendition of "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perry which Quinn officially classified as one of "Rachel's songs" and the original version now sucked by comparison. Then Jesse started getting too hands-y with Rachel for Finn's liking. Fight. Ejected. Coronation. Quinn's brain completely melted down. "This is your fault. No one ever would have voted for me because he would rather be with you!" Quinn could sort of put together that that made no sense, and Rachel was attempting to dispute her and Quinn just saw red. The next thing she knew her hand hurt and Rachel was clutching her left cheek. She'd hit Rachel… her Rachel… in the face. In her beautiful face. Quinn had violated her "Sticks and Stones" rule and she recoiled at herself in disgust. She'd hit the person she loved most in this world (aside from her daughter) over a stupid crown that she couldn't remember why she'd wanted it. "I'm so sorry," Quinn said. She'd wanted to add, 'for everything I've ever done to you' but the words died in her throat.
"Most girls would be upset about being slapped in the face, but… I happen to appreciate the drama of it," Rachel said.
Quinn couldn't help but feel like she was being let off the hook and before she knew it words were pouring out of her mouth, "I know you think it's hard to be you, Rachel, but at least you don't have to be terrified all of the time."
"What are you so scared of?" Rachel asked passing Quinn a damp paper towel.
Their fingers brushed lightly as Quinn took the towel and there was an electric charge that ran through Quinn's body so intense that she knew there was no way Rachel didn't feel it too. 'This is your opening, Fabray. Tell her that you're scared of admitting that you're gay. Tell her you're terrified of being in love with a girl that has ever reason to hate you. Screw telling her anything, just fucking kiss her! She'll get the hint!' "The future," she said. 'Quinn Fabray, you fucking coward!' "When all of this is gone." 'When you've graduated and gone to New York to do amazing things and I'm stuck here in this homophobic hell hole.'
"Look, you have nothing to be scared of. You're a very pretty girl, Quinn. The prettiest I've ever met, but you're a lot more than that." With that, Quinn's tears returned and Rachel helped her clean herself up. 'God, not only does she care about me, she actually believes in me. No one's ever said that to me before. Screw Prom Queen, I just want her.'
She worked on her plan and just when she was beginning to have some idea of what to do, Finn dumped her after Coach Sylvester's sister's funeral. He was leaving to go back to Rachel and there was nothing she could do or say to stop him, and Rachel was going to take him back because she just can't say no to that jackass. When Finn thanked her for not quitting Glee, Quinn made a vague statement about a plan, but the only plan she had was dead in the water. It was a completely empty threat, she had nothing. In New York, she had a vague notion of getting them caught sneaking out and getting the team disqualified from Nationals. Thankfully Santana and Brittany stopped her and took her for a therapeutic haircut and an amazing day in New York City. Finn screwed up their chances at the top ten and the money to really secure Glee Club's existence at the school. She knew she should want to kill him but somehow after all of it, Quinn just couldn't summon the energy to care about Finn anymore, he was never going to get his shit together when it came to Rachel and after New York, Rachel was never going to let him stand in her way. She'd told Santana that she wanted someone to love her… a very specific someone. It was time to focus. It was time to win her woman.
When Quinn saw Rachel sitting alone, looking bored at Mercedes' Fourth of July pool party she knew she had an opening. She just needed a chance to talk to her.
A/N: I know, a whole bunch of back story, right? Reviews. Tell me what you think.