3

Its six o'clock in the morning, three hours since Rachel left, and you're bordering on furious. You're pissed off at Rachel, at yourself, at the whole fucked up situation that is your life now. You keep running over and over every second you spent with her. Why couldn't you have just left it alone? Why couldn't you have just accepted that Rachel was someone sweet and funny who actually wanted to be around you unlike most people? Why did it matter so much to you who you were to each other before? But deep down you know why you couldn't just let it go. A part of you knew that she was lying to you. Well, maybe not lying, but she was definitely hiding something. And the fact that she knew something, that she had information about who you were and was keeping it from you, it was driving you insane.

Your mind keeps replaying the last minute before she left. The look on her face sad and resigned when she told you that she should never have come to see you, that it was all a mistake. Eventually your paths will cross at school and in the glee club but you don't think it will be your Rachel that you find there, just Rachel Berry. You feel panic at the thought that you may never really see her again. Which is absolutely insane. You've spent maybe a total of an hour with the girl, you barely know her. You know more intimate details about Nurse Debbie than you do about Rachel Berry. Still, you can't help but hear the part of you that's saying there's no point in starting over with this new life if Rachel isn't in it.

"Hey there, you're up early." Your head snaps up to see Dr. Steinman walking toward you and smiling. You didn't even hear him come in. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"No it's fine, I was just thinking." You give him a small smile. "Just trying to put some pieces together, ya know."

"Ah," he says with a mixture of understanding and sympathy, picking up your chart and flipping through it. "And how's that going?"

"Not so great to be perfectly honest." He laughs softly and writes something in the chart before closing it and coming to sit in the chair Rachel left at your side.

"Well that's to be expected unfortunately. Really all you can do now is gather the pieces and hope that eventually you can start to see how they all fit together."

"Right, patience. I don't think I'm very good at that." You exchange a look and a laugh before he sits back and begins to flip through your chart again.

"How's your vocabulary? Are words and definitions still hard to come by?"

"Not as bad as before. Earlier I couldn't remember the word for shoes but uh, I got it now. Clearly."

"Good, excellent. Another day or two and you should be right as rain," he says cheerfully, standing up and tucking the chart under his arm. "I'd like to run another quick test or two and get one more scan before you leave us. Dr. Mitchell will be down to take you in a few minutes and then you'll be free to go." He looks at you and smiles before extending his hand to you. "I'm terribly sorry we didn't meet under better circumstances Ms. Fabray." You shake his hand and try for a smile without too much regret in it.

"Yeah, me too. Thank you Dr. Steinman, for everything," you say sincerely, grateful for this man who was able to save your life.

"You're quite welcome Quinn."

When you finally get back to your room Judy Fabray is waiting for you with a bag and an impatient expression. The bag contains a pastel blue dress, white flats, a brand new cell phone (yours was apparently damaged in the wreck), and a credit card with your name on it. You change in the bathroom and the two of you walk silently to her car.

It takes fifteen minutes to get from the hospital to the Fabray house where Judy hands you a key and informs you that her book club meets at ten on Wednesdays which means she's already late. You take that as your cue to get out of the car so you do and head toward the house without so much as a backwards glance. The house is big, two stories and a four car garage, but that's pretty much what you'd expected. You unlock the door and walk into what looks more like a museum than a place where people actually live. There are family portraits and framed certificates scattered around the walls and trophies lining the mantles. Nearly every room is beige or off-white or eggshell and most of the furniture looks brand new and entirely unused.

You finally find your room upstairs at the end of a hallway. It looks slightly more lived in but still in theme with the vacant lifelessness of the rest of the house. The walls are a pale yellow and there are more trophies and a few pictures. You sit at the foot of the queen sized bed nearly in the middle of the room and slowly look around hoping for some kind of spark of recognition. Of course nothing comes. You walk across the room to a vanity to look at the pictures stuck in its mirror. There are two of you, Santana, and Brittany, all in red, white, and black uniforms and three of you with various members of the glee club. In a frame on the table is a picture of the entire glee club with Artie in the middle holding a trophy in his lap. Everyone in the picture is smiling at the camera like crazy, everyone except for you and Rachel. The two of you are on either side of Artie looking at each other and smiling in a way that you don't think has anything to do with the trophy between you. It doesn't escape your notice that of the few pictures in the room this is the only one Quinn Fabray felt the need to protect with a frame.

During a painfully awkward family dinner on Friday night you decide that you'll go back to school on Monday come hell or high water. You don't think you could survive another two weeks in this place. You spent most of Wednesday looking around the house and going through things. You looked in all the drawers and cabinets and bathroom closets. You took inventory of your books and music and clothes and flipped through some old yearbooks you found in a box on your closet shelf. Then you read the manual for your new phone trying to figure out how in the hell to work it. But when you realized that you didn't know any numbers or email addresses or important dates to put into it you tossed it to the side. When you finally fell asleep a little before eight the house was still empty.

When you woke up Thursday morning you found yourself alone again so you went downstairs and turned on the TV. After about fifteen minutes you realized that you couldn't watch anything without wondering if it used to be your favorite show or if you hated it or if you'd already seen this particular episode a dozen times. Which you found annoying as hell so you gave up on the TV altogether and started on the music. Quinn Fabray owned about thirty CDs and you listened to almost all of them throughout the day while trying on different clothes and hairstyles looking for the ones you liked best.

Friday you spent going through the books on your bookshelf randomly reading chapters from the ones that sounded interesting. A few chapters into Stephen King's Cell you hear the front door shut and someone moving around the house. You go downstairs to find Judy with a few bags of groceries. You consider offering to help put them away before you remember that you have no idea where anything goes and leaving the kitchen without a word. The rest of the day is spent avoiding each other at all costs until Russell comes home insisting that you all have dinner together. You eat so fast you almost choke.

Matt comes by to see you on Saturday and you nearly tackle him when he shows up. You drag him up to your room and thank him profusely for stopping by to keep you sane. He tells you what's going on in glee and some of what to expect on Monday. Then he shows you how to work your new phone and copies everyone's numbers over from his own. Before he leaves he makes you promise that you'll come to glee Monday after school if only to sit back and watch and get a feel for it and you tell him that you will. It's not like you'll be in any great hurry to get back home or anything. Plus you need to talk to Rachel again and it's the only place you know that she'll be.

On Sunday the Fabrays drag you to church because "You're expected to be there." The building is hot and crowded. The sermon is long-winded and the people are stuffy and overbearing. The Fabrays mill around afterwards chatting and making plans for the week. You finally get back to the house three hours after you left it. You have no idea how Quinn Fabray managed to do this every week for years on end without losing her mind. Then again, you guess she pretty much did.

Judy wakes you up Monday morning and tells you that she's laid out an outfit for your first day and points to the chair behind her where she's draped a pastel yellow baby doll dress and matching yellow flats. You have absolutely no idea how to even respond to that so you just nod and give her an uncomfortable smile. While you're getting ready you figure that the outfit is her way of making sure you don't sully the Fabray name on your first day out of the house. She drops you off and tells you that the office is inside and to the right somewhere and that you'll need to find a ride home and somebody to take you to and from school for the rest of the week as she'll be quite busy.

You wander for a few minutes before finally finding the principal's office. Principal Figgins introduces himself and tells you seriously that he refuses to condone any shenanigans here at McKinley High before directing you to the guidance counselor's office next door. The guidance counselor Ms. Pillsbury is soft spoken and has a certain air of anxious worry about her. She gives you some of the ins and outs that she thinks you'll need to survive the day and then spends a while just talking to you trying to gauge whether or not you're really ready to be back at school so soon.

She gives you a quick tour of the school pointing out all of the classes on the schedule she gave you earlier. Luckily this place doesn't seem to be very big so you don't think you'll get lost nearly as much as you were worried you would. As the two of you are walking to your locker a bell rings and the hallway is flooded with students. She gives you a piece of paper with your locker combination on it and wishes you good luck. It takes three tries but you finally get it open.

"Q!" you jump at a voice almost directly behind you and spin around to face a tall woman with short blonde hair in a black and green track suit. "Good to have you back. You're off the Cheerios. I can't very well have a head cheerleader who doesn't even remember how to perfectly execute a double back handspring."

"Um, I'm sorry?" you say slowly, shrinking into yourself a little.

"Disgraceful." She spins and storms down the hallway knocking the drink out of one student's hand and yanking the hat off of another before throwing it into a trash can and yelling something about looking like a street vendor's disease riddled monkey. You remember Matt warning you about a Coach Sylvester and figure that must've been her. The students are starting to thin out and suddenly you notice Rachel halfway down the hall digging around in her locker. You grab your English book, slam your locker shut, and make your way toward her. You stop and lean back against the locker on her left staring at her cautiously.

"So I think I just got fired from being a cheerleader," you chuckle and hope she'll accept the joke for the olive branch that it is. She closes her locker and walks down the hall, never once even glancing your way. You sigh and slam your head into the metal behind you. "Shit." You don't see her again until after school.

Most of your classes go by pretty smoothly, the teachers don't expect you to know much of anything and most of the students either ignore you or just mutter about you under their breath to their friends. In your second period English class a tall dark haired guy introduces himself as Dave Karofsky and tells you that he knows you don't remember but the two of you used to get together every Monday during lunch to have sex in a janitor's closet and he can't help but notice what day it is. You roll your eyes and tell him to fuck off before asking to be excused to the bathroom. You splash some water in your face and take a few deep breaths before your phone starts vibrating in your purse. It's a text message from Matt.

"How you holding up?" You smile remembering that at least one person's on your side.

"As good as expected. Just got propositioned for sex during lunch."

"Ha! Just another day in the life of Quinn Fabray. See you in glee?"

"I'll be there." You slip the phone back into your purse and take a moment to stare at yourself in the mirror. You feel awkward in your dress and headband, like you're wearing pearls and high heels in a bar. On the way back to English you decide that tomorrow you'll be picking out your own clothes thank you very much.

Your last class of the day is Spanish 2, which you think is kind of pointless to even attend seeing as how you don't remember Spanish 1. Then again you don't remember much of anything from your other classes either so you might as well go to this one too. William Schuester is standing at the front of the room writing words you don't understand on the dry erase board. Brittany and Santana are sitting in the far back corner talking to each other and laughing.

"Hey head case," Santana yells as you walk in before laughing and turning back to her conversation. Finn is sat directly in front of the girls and offers you a smile and a small wave. You wave back at him before taking a seat toward the back on the other side of the room. You spend the entire class trying to figure out the best way to apologize to Rachel and get her to talk to you again.

Matt meets you out in the hallway after class and the two of you walk to glee together stopping by both of your lockers on the way. You ask him if he could take you home afterwards and maybe pick you up tomorrow morning. He tells you it's no problem and offers to give you a ride to and from school as long as you need it. Everyone is already in the music room when you get there, scattered around and talking to each other. You catch Rachel's eye as you walk in and she immediately turns and walks away to sit on the other side of the room. You sigh and walk over to sit beside Artie slightly outside of the group.

Apparently there's a competition in a little over a month and everyone's arguing about which songs they should perform. Eventually they all settle down as Mr. Schuester hands out new music to everyone including you telling you that "Of course you don't have to sing unless you want to." He gives the two leads to Rachel and Mike who nod and move to stand in front of the group. Everyone looks confused before all turning at once to look at Finn. The boy in question however just smiles and starts looking over his sheet music. You don't try to sing along with the group, instead opting to just sit back and listen. As soon as Rachel opens her mouth you're transfixed. You spent all weekend listening to hundreds of songs by dozens of different people and you never heard anything like this. Something about her voice causes you to almost instantly relax for the first time in days. You feel the calm she brought you that first day all over again. You're pretty sure you'd be perfectly content to just sit and listen to her for the rest of the day, maybe the rest of your life.

As you watch her more closely you notice that while her voice is amazing something is definitely off. Her face is almost expressionless and she hasn't taken her eyes off of her sheet music once. Mike keeps glancing over toward her trying to catch her attention but so far it hasn't worked. After the song is finished Mr. Schuester makes a few suggestions and they run through it two more times. Rachel barely moves the entire time, almost as if she's sleepwalking, or sleep singing as the case may be. After everyone's dismissed you immediately walk over to where she's gathering her stuff to leave.

"You were really good up there, Rachel," you say softly scared that any loud noises or quick movements will send her running in the opposite direction again. "Your voice is kind of amazing."

"Thank you, Quinn," she says without even turning to face you.

"Listen, I wanted to apologize for the other night. I shouldn't have –" She picks up her bag and spins around holding a hand up to stop you. Her eyes quickly dart around the room before she speaks.

"It's fine, Quinn. An apology is not necessary," she says quickly before moving past you and out the door. You stare after her for a few seconds before throwing your arms up in frustration.

"Fuck!" you mutter under your breath, walking back over to your seat to pick up your purse.

"Hey funny girl, you ready to go?" Matt asks as he strolls toward you.

"God yes," you blurt out feeling exhausted. He laughs and slings and arm around your shoulders walking you to his car.

You're extremely grateful to wake up to an empty house Tuesday morning. You throw on some dark jeans, a green t-shirt that says 'Big Bob's Discount Tires' on the front in faded letters, and some black and white shoes from the back of your closet that say converse on the side. You look through your drawers until you find a metal watch that looks almost like a guy's and a thick black bracelet. You look at yourself in your floor length mirror and decide to just leave your hair down. Already you feel more comfortable than you did yesterday morning.

Matt greets you with a low whistle as you get in his car.

"Nice threads, Fabray," he says with a grin. "Especially the green, it makes your eyes look like they're screaming at me or something."

"Um, thanks?" you say slowly grinning too.

"No it's a good kind of screaming. Like 'Hey! Look how hot I am!' or something like that." You bust out laughing and he joins in. "Sorry. I'm just saying you should dress like that more often."

"That's the plan I think," you say smiling as he pulls the car out of the driveway.

Apparently Quinn Fabray pretty much always wore dainty dresses and skirts. You've gotten nearly a dozen comments on your 'new look' and even more curious glances and whispers. Plus an offer from Karofsky to meet you at lunch and pretend it's Monday. You shrug it off figuring it's better to have them whispering about your clothes than about the fact that you can't even remember your own birthday. Other than that the day seems to flow a bit easier than yesterday and you figure by Friday you might be able to make it through the whole day without feeling panicky and having to run to the bathroom to calm yourself down.

As you and Matt approach the music room you can already hear Rachel on the other side of the door lecturing someone about the egotistical qualities of some guy named Andrew Lloyd Webber. You walk through the door and she freezes mid-sentence the second she sees you and all the air rushes out of her like she's been punched in the stomach. She slowly scans you all the way down to your shoes before looking back up at you. She stares at you for what feels like hours and you get the feeling she's searching for something. Finally she seems to realize what she's doing and snaps herself out of whatever moment she's pulled the two of you into. She shakes her head, blinking rapidly and glances around slightly panicked before she rushes out the door nearly slamming into both you and Matt in the process.

"Whoa. What the hell was that?" Matt asks you.

"I have no idea," you answer truthfully after a few seconds. You can't even begin to understand what the hell just happened but there's one person who can tell you. You turn around and take off into the hallway after her but she's gone. You wander around for a few minutes yelling her name and checking in bathrooms but you don't find her. No one sees Rachel Berry again for two days.