A/N: Finally! Another chapter! Enjoy what was written during boring lectures and equally as unproductive tutorials.
Quinn strode through the house, leaving a trail of rainwater behind. Her eyes darted about, searching. The house was quiet, but for the beating of the rain and the cacophony of the storm. She burst into the kitchen, the voices of Brittany and Santana chasing after her.
"You can't just break into someone's house, Q!"
"She didn't break anything, the door was open," the disembodied voice of Brittany said. In other circumstances, Quinn would have laughed, but as it was, her teeth ground against each other, the muscle in her jaw twitching with the strain. Her eyes narrowed at the man standing in the middle of the kitchen.
"Nephilim!" she hissed.
"I thought you were fleeing," Hiram answered, calm, dunking a tea bag into a steaming mug. He didn't even look at her.
"I was. And then I realised how you knew the storm was related to me," she replied, slipping into the stool on the other side of the bench. Brittany and Santana appeared in the doorway, Lord Tubbington close behind. They paused there, standing close together, watching Quinn and Hiram Berry.
"It only took you four years," Hiram said, adding a teaspoon of sugar to his tea. He stirred it, smiling at Quinn, "All this time, I wondered if you were just playing dumb, but here you are, telling me you genuinely didn't know. Getting senile are we?"
"I wasn't looking," Quinn growled. She was tempted to punch the man in the face for his arrogance, imagining the satisfaction she could get from feeling his glasses shatter under her knuckles. But she held herself in check; some fantasies were better off not played out.
"I thought there weren't many Nephilim around," Brittany murmured behind Quinn. The pink haired girl turned to look at her, the other, and currently only, other blonde in the Unholy Trinity.
"There aren't Britt, but that doesn't mean they're all gone. As long as my people exist, so will his," she said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the man.
"Now, now. Now need to point. That's rude," he admonished, as if he were talking to a young child. Looking at him again, Quinn saw the smile still plastered on his face. It was frozen, as if he couldn't remove it. She had to remind herself that punching him would not be a good idea. But the temptation still scratched at her knuckles, the palm of her hand itching. Her hand twitched, wanting to curl into a fist. She stopped it.
"You're hiding. From me?" she asked him. He grinned at her, almost maniacally. Quinn narrowed her eyes at him. Something about him just didn't sit right with her. The grin was too wide, his eyes too dull.
"From everyone," he replied, ending the statement with a laugh.
"Quinn…" Santana said softly. Quinn didn't miss the warning tone in the Latina's voice. They were on the same page.
"I know," she answered. Footsteps echoed off the floor, from the corridor outside, filling in the short silence following Hiram's laugh.
"Daddy? I heard voices," Rachel said, stopping short when she realised who was sharing the company of her father.
"Rachel, you need to stay back," Santana warned, moving to completely block the doorway.
"No. What's going on? Let me through!" she cried, pushing past the two former cheerleaders, and striding up to Quinn. She looked from the girl to Hiram, trying to discern what was happening. Hiram's lopsided grin grew even wider upon laying eyes on her.
"Rachel! Rachel baby. Baby, baby Rachel!" he exclaimed. Rachel took a step backwards, eyebrows knit together in a display of wariness and worry. With one glance, Quinn could see the brunette's hands begin to shake, tiny vibrations which made them tremor almost imperceptibly. Another look at her face made her reconsider the emotions which were written there. There was something in her eyes, something which looked a lot like fear.
"Baby, baby Rachel. The girl with the great voice; the star. The girl who knows much but who knows nothing. Rachel baby Berry, the girl who doesn't even know her own father!" Hiram giggled, bouncing up and down on his toes. It was as if the sight of his daughter completely unhinged him. His head shook from side to side, then stopped, cocked like a bird's. Quinn stared at his eyes; they were vacant; the spark of life still lit them, but the clarity of consciousness had fled.
"Rachel," she said, trying to hustle the girl further back from Hiram. Rachel took the steps Quinn prompted, distancing herself from the giggling form of her father.
"I know. It's happening again. I don't know how to stop it. Papa always knew. Where is he?" she ejaculated the last statement, exasperation colouring her voice.
"This has happened before?" Quinn asked, incredulous.
"What is it?" Brittany questioned. Rachel shook her head, as if trying to dispel a disturbing image.
"Possession," Quinn said simply.
"It hasn't happened for a long time. I thought, because it had been so long, that it wouldn't happen again. I thought it was over. I was young when it last happened. He got all giggly and started saying strange things. Papa took me upstairs and told me not to worry, that daddy was just trying to be funny. I sat up there in my room, and I heard thumps and then everything went quiet. Papa came in soon after and said goodnight, and that daddy was ok now. The next morning, it was like none of it had ever happened," Rachel murmured, her eyes glazed over as she retraced the memory. Quinn's heart went out to the girl; so much went on behind closed doors.
"What do we do, Q?" Santana asked, staring at Quinn for leadership. She ran a hand through her short pink hair, thinking. Exorcism, perhaps, but she liked the idea of talking to the demons - maybe she'd learn something of the life she'd so long been disconnected from. The other option was to wait for the other half of the Berry couple, Leroy, to return home. She eyed the man who still grinned maniacally, shifting his weight from foot to foot as if he were eager to dance.
"Tell me," she said, addressing the demons playing havoc on his body, "do you like it in there? Is it nice escaping from yourselves into the body of an ordinary man?"
Hiram giggled, the action making his body tremor and his eyes bulge. He nodded fervently.
"We like it here! Body warm. Body fun! But man not ordinary."
"No?" Quinn questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"No!" the demons cackled. Beside Quinn, Rachel flinched. "Man not man! Man Nephilim!"
"Why him? You can have anyone, so why him?" she said, voice cutting through the raucous laughter which echoed off the walls and the cupboards, making her head ring.
"Fun! And so easy! He lets us! All his pills make it so easy!"
"His sleeping pills," Rachel explained in a low voice when Quinn frowned at her, the question in her eyes.
"So that's it? It's just for fun? Y'all are crazy," Santana said. The statement sent Hiram into another fit of laughter.
"You're crazy! We're fun! This man so fun. So many secrets. And bad dreams, such bad dreams! Make him cry at night when no one can see!" With this, the demons cracked up again, the laughter making Hiram wheeze. Quinn was slightly worried; she didn't know whether they realised that a body could only take so much.
"Why don't you come out so we can talk? Leave the poor man alone. You've had your fun now," she encouraged, hoping they would take up the idea. Hiram bounced a little on the balls of his feet.
"No!" he screamed after a second's pause. "We like it here! Here is fun! Here is warm! Here is not cold like the Otherworld."
"Why don't they just take some blankets instead?" Brittany asked Santana behind Quinn. She ignored them, focusing on Hiram. She opened herself up, allowing power to flood her, letting it crest in her blood, letting it ignite her cells, and when she was sure she could hold no more, she let it go in words, a command. She told the demons to get out of Hiram's body. The man quivered, his movements coming to a still. Then he started to shake, violently. His arms flailed about, knocking over the mug of tea he'd placed on the bench. It fell to the floor, shattering and sending splodges of hot liquid all over the tiles. He jerked, and something shadowy, indefinable burst from his chest. And then again. And again. He collapsed, limbs spreadeagle, in the vestiges of tea, and broken ceramic. With a cry, Rachel dashed over to him, feet crunching over the minuscule pieces of broken mug, and knelt over, placing a hand on his chest. Her other hand felt for a pulse.
"Thank god," she breathed. Quinn released the inhalation of air she'd been holding. She hadn't expected the worst, but she'd felt the tension anyway. She turned her attention to the grey shadows zooming around the ceiling.
"Hey! Hey! Stop! Materialise so I can talk to you!" she commanded, power still lacing her voice. The shadows stopped buzzing, settling and taking more solid forms. One sat upon the bench, crouched next to the tissue box. Another sat in the sink, while the third perched upon the top of the cupboard. They looked very much alike; snub nosed faces, bulging eyes, skin bare and black, like leather. At first glance, they looked like wingless gargoyles, as though they ought to be sitting on Gothic cathedrals, guarding the sanctuary from evil.
"Now," said Quinn, "tell me why you're here."
"Fun!" the one in the sink cried, and the other two giggled - high pitched sounds, almost like dolls'.
"To play with the Nephilim and the crack in his mind!" expanded the one on the bench, more solemnly than they had seen the demons act so far.
"What do you mean the crack in his mind?" Quinn prodded, gently, for fear of sending it back into a fit of giggles. But it seemed to realise that its words were now a matter of importance.
"Up here," it said, pointing to its head, waddling closer, as if imparting a great secret, "he's broken up here."
"Can you tell me how?" Quinn asked. The others were quiet, engrossed by the creature and what it was saying. Santana was frowning, as if she didn't understand a thing, and Brittany had her head cocked slightly to one side, as though listening to silent words that nobody else could here.
"Broken! Cracked! Too many secrets. Too many bad dreams."
"Do you know if I can fix it?"
"No! No fixing! He's broken forever!" the demon on the cupboard giggled. The one on the bench shot it a look that Quinn was sure was identical to the one she gave Finn that time he suggested Drizzle as a name for their baby; such a long time ago, it felt - lifetimes away, almost. She pushed it from her memory. The demon turned back to her, eyes wide. The corners of its mouth were turned down, its forehead creased with a hundred little wrinkles.
"No fix. Broken," it said sadly, "but still working!" it continued, brightening, "still working!"
"What does that mean? How can something broken still work?" Rachel asked, a tear sliding down her face. From the streaks down her face, it looked like that wasn't the first one she'd shed so far. Nor was it likely to be the last. Her hand was still on Hiram's heart. Quinn could see it rise and fall with every one of the man's breaths. She gazed at him, his eyes closed, worlds away from them there in the kitchen, trying to puzzle out what the demon's words meant. But it was Brittany who spoke, breaking the confused silence.
"Sad," she said to the demon, who nodded enthusiastically. Brittany grinned at it.
"He doesn't mean broken in the head. He means a broken heart," she explained. For the life of her, Quinn had no idea how Brittany knew that the demon was a male, let alone what it had meant.
"What? Britt that doesn't make any sense. The thing was pointing at its head. I saw it. It was definitely its head," Santana said, frowning. Trying to prove it to them, Brittany pointed to her heart. The demon shook his head, placing a finger to the side of his skull.
"See!"
"No, he means heart," Brittany assured, confident. She smiled at the demon again.
"How do you know?" asked Rachel from the floor.
"He doesn't think like us. We think emotion comes from the heart, but it doesn't. It actually comes from the brain. We just like to romanticise things," she explained. The three of them blinked at the blonde girl, amazing. "What?" she shrugged, "I know stuff too."
"You're a genius!" Santana exclaimed, pulling her into a hug.
"But why does daddy have a broken heart?" Rachel wondered out loud.
"Because he's lonely," a voice said. All seven of then in the room turned in surprise. Leroy Berry stood in the hallway behind Brittany and Santana.
"But he has us. How can he be lonely?"
"Because he's not like us."
"What do you mean? I…I don't understand," Rachel stammered.
"He's a Nephilim," Quinn stated quietly.
"A what?"
"A Nephilim. When an angel and a human have a baby, the baby is a Nephilim," Brittany explained, chiming in.
"So, daddy isn't…human?" Rachel asked, hesitating. The words were having trouble sinking in. Quinn could see the uncertainty in Rachel's eyes.
"Not entirely," Leroy affirmed.
"And neither are you," Quinn interjected. Rachel's jaw dropped at the words. Both she and Leroy stared at Quinn, one with confusion in her eyes, the other with anger in his. Quinn licked her lips. When did her mouth get so dry? For a brief flicker of a second, she wondered how she was there in the Berry house, digging up family secrets, when she was supposed to be getting as far away from the city as possible. The muscle in Leroy's jaw twitched. She didn't want to be the one to break the news - it wasn't her responsibility. But the man whose responsibility it was, was lying on the floor in a pool of cold tea, unconscious. And so it fell to Quinn; at this point, the truth couldn't be hidden. Dark secrets were coming to light, and the Unholy Trinity weren't the only ones with skeletons in their closets. She took a breath.
"Do you remember when you said you didn't know which of your dads was your biological father because they mixed their sperm together and impregnated Shelby with a turkey baster?" she began. Rachel nodded, and Quinn wondered how much of that Rachel actually believed. As if the turkey baster didn't indicate that part of it was a lie. She continued, "well, I know."
"How? You can't possibly know without a paternity test."
"Nephilim can resist an angel's power because of their shared DNA," Quinn said.
"Yes," Rachel replied, nodding to show that she was following.
"I tried to use my power on you while we were in the car," Quinn continued. Rachel's face displayed her irritation now; she wasn't connecting the dots.
"Yes, and? I don't see how this has anything to do with anything," she exasperated, impatient with Quinn and her reluctance to spell it out for her.
"And you resisted, Rachel."
The girl blinked, brown eyes taking in Quinn's last sentence. They widened as it registered, a truth, hidden in the darkest corners of her soul, revealing itself. Her eyebrows shot up, mouth parting with the realisation.
"Oh!" she breathed.
"You're one of us!" Brittany cried, breaking the tension and pulling Rachel into a hug. Santana's eyes narrowed at Rachel until she and Brittany broke apart. The demons giggled from their various places. But Rachel, Leroy, Quinn and Santana were quiet. Quinn's thoughts were back in the Lima Heights Adjacent garage, the intangible magic of Morgana pervading the space, probing them. If Rachel had Nephilim blood, which she clearly did, then she wasn't as invisible as Quinn had first assumed. In fact, she was just as visible as any of the Unholy Trinity. And right now, standing in the Berry kitchen, they were like a beacon in the storm, a neon sign saying "here I am!".
Rachel took a couple of steps back from the rest of them, as if trying to distance herself from the revelation. She caught sight of Hiram, still prostrate on the floor. In that second, she crumbled; it was like everything fell into place and the stress was too much to bear, so she cracked. Tears ran down her cheeks, fast, hot, leaving trails along the planes of her face. Quinn could see her trying to hold it together, to put back the pieces of herself which had spilled out all over the floor, fallen amongst broken ceramics and puddles of tea. But she couldn't. She sobbed, breath ragged, uneven. Everything she'd known to be true had been turned on its head. Quinn pitied her, and something else too. She considered for a moment. Guilt; that's what it was. If it hadn't been for her, Rachel would have gone on with her life, blissfully ignorant of the Otherworldly blood flowing through her veins.
On the floor, Hiram stirred, coughing back into consciousness. Rachel snatched back her hand from his chest, as he struggled to take his first few breaths.
"Rachel," he murmured, spotting her. She smiled - the kind of a smile that only heartbreak can produce; watery eyes and knitted eyebrows, and corners of the mouth which struggle to stretch upwards. Hiram sat up, slowly, like an old man whose muscles don't quite work properly anymore, looking at the destroyed mug, seeing the demons, as well as his uninvited guests and husband. His face crumpled, his breath escaping him in an "oh".
"Daddy is it true?" Rachel asked him, placing a hand on his cheek, pulling his face towards her.
"Rachel, now's not the time," Leroy warned, but his daughter wasn't listening.
"You're a Nephilim, and I'm half Nephilim." For a tense moment, the man didn't answer, the only sound the breathing of nine beings in the room. Hiram, broke eye contact with his daughter, looking down at his hands. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
"We were going to tell you," Leroy spoke up, "but we didn't know how to bring it up. Or how to explain it all. And god knows, honey, the time never seemed right."
"We were thinking on your eighteenth birthday. We thought you might be ready then," added Hiram, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"I am eighteen, daddy."
"I know. We couldn't bring ourselves to ruin your day."
Quinn stood there amid this family confession, feeling out of place. She wasn't supposed to be there - this wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to be halfway to the middle of nowhere by now, fleeing for the umpteenth time from those who forever followed her. Even as she thought this, she became aware of the quiet. The storm, the raging, howling, vehement storm had all but disappeared. No wind rattled the windows, no thunder echoed in the sky, and the rain, though still falling, had lost its violence. To anyone else, it would look as though the storm had simply worn itself out. But Quinn knew better. She shivered.
"Ah," she breathed.
"What? What is it?" Rachel asked.
"Q? What is it?"
Quinn, looking them each in the eye, grimaced. She fortified herself, taking a deep breath, reaching that calm place within herself, fighting off the fast rising panic.
"I hope you're prepared for guests."
Before the implication of the words have even been comprehended, there was the unmistakable sound of shattering glass.