CHAPTER 1
High school, Sophomore Year
Pain makes you weak, before it makes you stronger
The pain was too much, it felt like someone had taken a knife and sliced through her stomach. There was blood everywhere; it was sprawling across the bathroom tiles, rushing through the cracks, filling the gaps in between like a mosaic of anger that wasn't going to stop.
Quinn gripped her stomach in agony. She was sobbing so hard but no sound was leaving her mouth, nothing was making any sense other than all the pain. She bent over, her head against the cubicle, her eyes closed.
"Please god," she begged, "Please god, someone help me,"
The door to the bathroom was swung open and she heard her name.
"Q?" Santana called, "Baby mama, are you practicing your birthing calls or did you get stuck in the toilet bowl?"
"San," she screamed.
Blood; there was so much blood.
Santana simultaneously kicked the door inwards, in response, "Jesus Christ," Santana cried reaching for her.
"There's so much blood," Quinn choked, god it was everywhere, it was dripping down her legs, it was filling her shoes, soaking through her socks, soaking her pants, soaking everything in this sickening bright red.
God this was it.
"Q," Santana whimpered pulling her phone out, she began to rub her back as Quinn cried into the side of the wall.
"Ambulance," Santana said urgently into her receiver, "I need an ambulance to McKinley High,"
Santana gripped Quinn tightly as the operator fired questions at her, "there's so much blood," she cried, and her face said everything Quinn and the operator already knew, "I think she's having a miscarriage,"
"E TRAUMA NOW" resounds throughout the department on the overhead pager.
White lights hung above Quinn's head, as the ceiling seemed to rush past in moments, that she wasn't even sure were happening. Santana hadn't let go of her hand the entire time in the ambulance. The paramedic had punctured a needle into her arm, and suddenly the pain seemed to ease, but she could still feel blood, she could still smell it, god she wanted to be sick.
"Female, 16 years old," the paramedic is yelling at one of the MD's.
A woman bends over the hospital bed, "Miss Fabray? Quinn? Can you hear me sweetheart, I want you to squeeze my hand if you can hear me,"
"Santana," Quinn replied, there was too much light, saucepans were spinning above her head like planets, she felt sick, she wanted to be sick.
The room went silent as the paramedics tried to explain what had happened.
"Ruptured ectopic pregnancy," the officer explains, "Five months and three weeks pregnant,"
A million hands were grasping at her, cutting clothes, placing tubes in her.
"Santana," Quinn cried.
"Q," she heard, "Q, I'm right here, let the doctors fix you, it's going to be okay,"
The last thing Quinn heard was Santana muffling a cry as a nurse bent over her and injection something into her arm. All the lights faded.
. . .
The hospital smelt like apple juice does when it's freshly pulped, at least this was the first thing Quinn smelt when the anaesthesia wore off. Opening her eye's felt like trying to open them with her head in the sand, they were scratchy and heavy and midway between fluttering them open, she wished her brain had just decided to keep them closed.
"San! She's waking up!"
The figure was blurry, outlined above her, but Quinn would know that voice even if she never opened her eyes again. Another figure appeared by the bed side, slightly darker, she bent down, nearly engulfing Quinn's central vision.
"Q? Are you awake Q?"
"San," she managed to choke out.
The vision came back in a rush then. Like someone had walked into the room and switched the lights on. Quinn felt blinded. Only now did she realise that Brittany had been holding an apple juice box inches away from her face. The stickiness of hair indicated it had dribbled on her. If ever you've been asleep for what feels like a century, it's uncanny how much your senses restart in a rush. They kick into overdrive almost immediately and suddenly you've got all these different feelings running at you, annoyed that you haven't used them in a while.
Quinn felt stiffness claw at her body, she could see Santana biting her lip as Brittany disappeared to call the nurses, and she could smell hospital, that musky smell of bed sheets and bed pans. But most of all she could feel her stomach, this tightness that felt like a fist was curled around her waist and squeezing as hard as it possibly could.
Santana bent down close to her, she kissed her cheek softly before leaning into Quinn's ear, "We love you Quinn," she whispered.
Before Quinn could ask anything, two nurses and a doctor had sprawled into the room, followed by her mother.
"Baby," Judy was saying as she tried to control her leaking eyes, "Oh thank you god,"
Quinn felt her body still as one of the nurses began fumbling with the IV drip beside her bedside.
"Miss Fabray," a man smiled, "My name is Doctor Collingway, I was here when you were brought through emergency. Do you remember that?"
"Yes," she murmured, although everything was still a little blurry.
Quinn locked her eyes on her mother.
Make it go away Mum, make all the pain go away.
Dr Collingway glanced at Judy, "Quinn I need to explain some information to you, is there anything you need before I do so? How's the pain?"
Quinn wasn't stupid, she knew her body, and she could feel it. She knew what he was going to say before he'd even thrown the medical terminology in her face.
"Quinn," he began, edging closer to her bedside, "You have suffered a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, or what we also call a haemorrhage, due to the extent of your bleeding it was necessary that we operated," he paused slightly to make sure she was taking this in, Quinn was still staring at her mother.
"The procedure we performed," he continued, "Is called a dilation and curettage or a D&C, we gave you anaesthesia and we dilated your cervix,"
Quinn felt sick, she didn't want this imagery, and she didn't understand what they had done to her.
"Quinn it was a very simple procedure to vacuum the uterine lining. It was needed because the pregnancy posed as a threat to your health, there was a complication with severe blood loss, but we've controlled the bleeding and I will prescribe you antibiotics for two weeks,"
Quinn stared at the doctor as he spoke words she couldn't even comprehend. She just wanted a simple answer.
"So that's it," she asked, "I'm not pregnant anymore?"
The doctor stared back at her, realising that this was a sixteen year old, and that all she wanted was yes or no. He held her gaze a moment, before placing down the clipboard and raising his chest.
"Quinn, you suffered a miscarriage, you are no longer pregnant,"
Quinn refused to take her eyes off her mother. In the entire time she had just kept staring at her. Judy's lips were quivering, her eyes swollen; it looked like she'd been crying for hours.
"Quinn," the doctor was saying again, "We have counselling available; it might also be nice to hold a memorial for your child?"
Quinn wanted to be sick, her child? But her child wasn't inside her anymore. It hadn't had the chance to properly grow; it hadn't had the chance to live in this world.
Was this her fault?
The doctor was telling her it wasn't her fault, but why did she feel as though it was.
She didn't understand, nothing made any sense other than the fact the baby inside her, had left. It had abandoned her. How could it do that? She never once had wanted to abandon it; she never once said it couldn't grow inside her body anymore. Why had Brittany curled into Santana to hide her tears, and why was Santana biting her lip to stop herself from breaking down? Why was her mother talking to the nurse about counselling arrangements? Where was the baby? She had planned to give the baby to the nice family on Batemans Road, Mr and Mrs Kawaski. Mrs Kawaski was infertile, and she couldn't have children. She was a nice lady. Now Quinn had gone and lost the one thing she had promised to give them. This was her fault. This had all along, been all her fault.
