"I wanted to bring this to your attention this morning. But you were not available," Rachel explained, folding her warm red pea coat over her forearm as she sat down opposite Principle Figgins, and lapped one leg over the other.
Her words were met with a boxy yet friendly chuckle. "Family emergency," Mr Figgins complained in his thick Indian accent, albeit fondly. "I'm sure you know how it is."
Nodding, Rachel offered up a small smile, because she did know how it was. Family emergencies were the reason why she'd put her life in New York on hold to return to Lima.
But this wasn't about that.
"Mr Puckerman," she stated, as if to draw a succinct line under the previous topic. "My concerns lie with his conduct."
Principle Figgins' thick dark brow crinkled slightly. "Conduct?" he repeated, shrugging off his somewhat lax posture to sit up straighter.
Rachel nodded. "Yes. I recently witnessed a conversation between Quinn Fabray and Mr Puckerman, where both parties appeared to be engaging in some sort of quarrel. I did not hear what was being said, but their body language struck me as rather oddly inappropriate."
"How so?"
"Mr Puckerman appeared shifty, as well as panicked about the fact that I was present. Quinn appeared to be rather short with him, and did not, at all, seem mindful of his position as a McKinley High staff member. The interaction seemed very informal, despite Mr Puckerman's efforts to make me think otherwise, which only served to make me more suspicious." Like a lawyer who was set to present facts to a judge, Rachel carefully unfolded the news report that she'd printed, and slid it across the desk. "Given Mr Puckerman's less than professional approach towards me, as well as several other female faculty members, my suspicions regarding his relationship with Quinn were piqued to the point that I felt it necessary to look into his background. What I discovered did nothing to placate my initial concerns."
When Principle Figgins eased his face into a pair of reading glasses, and regarded the report for all of five seconds before folding it back up again, Rachel cleared her throat firmly. "I'd appreciate it if you'd read the entire report before -"
"Miss Berry. Miss Berry," Principle Figgins interrupted, slinging a weary hand up in the face of what was beginning to feel like an onslaught. He leaned back in his chair, and slid the dismissed report into the inside breast pocket of his blazer. "I'm already aware of this incident. The allegations against Mr Puckerman were dropped by the would-be victim, and fairly quickly. He wasn't convicted, still has his license, and is an excellent guidance counselor to our students."
"With all due respect, Mr Figgins, that does not mean that the allegations were false in nature. That just means that the allegations were dropped. For what reason, none of us can be certain. What are the chances of me suspecting that Mr Puckerman is engaging in indecent conduct with a student here, only to find a report such as the one that currently sits in your blazer pocket?"
As if the day was aging him five years by the second, Principle Figgins sighed. "Has Miss Fabray told you, herself, that something is going on between herself and Mr Puckerman?"
"No, she has not. But surely a reputable teacher's inclinations, along with Mr Puckerman's past, are enough to at least spark an investigation!"
"Have you seen Mr Puckerman behaving in an indecent manner with any of our other students?"
"No. I have not."
"And you expect me to take your tenuous conjecture to the Ohio Department of Education?" Principle Figgins asked, chuckling softly, but in much the same way that he imagined the education officials would. "Excuse my response," he apologized. "But you've little to go on here. You did not see, or hear, Mr Puckerman engaging in any indecent behavior with Miss Fabray. They were talking, and perhaps acting a little strangely. But that could be due to any number of factors, one of which may stem from the rapport that he has with her, as her guidance counselor." The principle clasped his hands atop the desk as if winding down, like the closing segments of a book.
Rachel narrowed her eyes at them.
"Nevertheless, thank you for airing your concerns. I'm going to keep a very close eye on the situation, Miss Berry, and will be making a report to the Ohio Department of Education accordingly."
"Yes well," Rachel began, shooting up from her seat with an air of huffiness that was just tame enough to preserve her respectability, "don't blink, because I won't be. And should I discover anything more, regarding this matter, I will be taking it straight to the police!"
On her curt walk out of the office and into the corridor, her nostrils grew full with a familiar scent - that severe yet dizzyingly sweet aroma of expensive cologne. The cologne that she'd come to associate with Mr Puckerman.
What twirled her petite frame around, on the spot, was something quiet and instinctual - the mysterious sixth sense that always guided her gaze throughout a crowded room, to settle upon the one pair of eyes that were settled upon her.
And sure enough, there stood Mr Puckerman.
His face articulated casual calmness, his eyes dark with something that could be seen but not touched.
Rachel folded her arms around her pea coat, and blinked at him haughtily. Expectantly, because she expected the man who seemed to move without sound to know every word that she'd just spoken to Principle Figgins.
And sure enough...
"You sure you didn't wanna take me up on that offer to come to my place Saturday night?" he asked. "It'd save you the trouble of having to moonlight as a private investigator. You could just, you know…" He shrugged a shoulder, moving in measured steps towards the dangerously perceptive woman. "Ask me whatever you wanted to know. Upfront. Though..." Noah paused, seemingly to watch his left hand tug the right into a chic men's brown leather glove. "Agent Berry does have a ring to it."
"Oh really? How splendid that you think so," Rachel quipped.
"Nothing's going on between me and Quinn – or any of the other students here!" he snarled, all pretense evaporating with the sudden spectacle of his caged white teeth. "And if you think that I'd even think about crossing those boundaries, you're outta your mind!"
"If there's one thing that life has taught me, it's that all sorts of people are capable of all sorts of things."
"And you think I'm capable of -"
"Are you?" Rachel cut in, lifting a powerfully challenging eyebrow. She watched the muscular man struggle to keep his eyes to a low flame, and to his eventual success. But he failed to keep the two dark haunted pools pure.
"What is it that you have against me?" he quietly hissed, instead of the explosion that Rachel was sure his coiling fists were capable of.
She cast her gaze over his face, unable to temper her ability to read between the lines. The fine print. Mostly, it was that that she held against the shifty man – that when she stared at him, her somewhat faded scars fell open to become hot bubbling wounds again. No, she did not have definitive proof that he was taking advantage of Quinn Fabray, or any other student at the school. But she sensed it. She sensed it more deeply than she cared to discuss – had a nose for it. Knew that the man who stood before her was of the same design as the man who'd manipulated her mother into allowing her to be... taken advantage of, during her childhood.
With the steady flourishing of those dark memories, Rachel filled with fire. Her jaw wound square and taut. "As of right now, my case may be one of pure conjecture. But know, with every fiber of your being, that if you have been abusing your position here, I'm going to find out!"
"Maybe you should know that you're more Quinn's type than I am - that what you witnessed in the doorway of the supply room was Quinn freaking out about that, and me trying to calm the situation." Noah watched the short woman's throat bob with her ebbing certainty; he was already applauding himself for the blow that he was about to deliver. The one that he hoped would result in Miss Berry keeping a formal distance from the cheerleader and, as a consequence, the truth. At least until he had a handle on Quinn anyway. "When you first started to teach here, your name came up during one of our sessions. I asked her how she was coming along in your class, and you should've seen it! When I said your name? She could barely look me in the eye anymore - started to blush. From her ears to her toes. So maybe you're the one who needs to be careful of your conduct around Quinn, before you find yourself on the wrong side of some spiteful allegations, all because you don't return her feelings. Just something for you to consider whilst you enjoy your evening, Miss Berry. Have a good one."
As Mr Puckerman stepped past her and headed off down the hallway, his lips puckering around a casual whistle, Rachel's eyelids blinked themselves few and far between. She found herself gazing off into all of her past interactions with the Cheerio's Captain, hoping to hold them up next to the version of reality that Mr Puckerman had just painted.
Whilst Quinn seemed to greet most other faculty members with surface friendliness, she had never acted with an ounce of it around the new music teacher. In fact, the teenager seemed to make it a point to sit at her desk, quiet and superior, as if always on the lookout for an opportunity to make Rachel look stupid - not that she ever really succeeded. But the tension was there. Typically, that wasn't how a teenager with a crush would behave. But then... if the young blonde's earlier display of self-loathing was any indication, Rachel supposed that it made sense for Quinn to want to tear down the object of her forbidden affection - to need to prove to herself that she could bring a knife down on her sapphic feelings at will. To need to convince herself that she wasn't what she so desperately was.
To think that the teenager was in such a dark place was deeply concerning…
It was the sudden sound of the janitor wheeling by an old noisy supply cart that brought Rachel back.
He sent her a smile that was fashioned like the apology he felt he owed on behalf of the ruckus. "Didn't mean to startle you. But eh - noise can't be any worse than some of the singin' in your Glee Club, right?" he jested, hefting out a hearty laugh.
She granted him a subdued but forgiving smile, and asked, "would you happen to know whether or not Miss Pillsbury is still on the premises?"
"Yeah. I walked by the main office just minutes ago. She's still here, filing files like always. Why?" the man chuckled. "Need to make a cross phone call to some poor soul's parents?"
"Something like that."
"Whilst you're over there, get the blinds," Russell said, relaxing back into the couch whilst propping his feet up on the foot stool.
With a gentle wrist, Judy twisted the thin transparent lever that descended down from the upper windowsill, watching as the slats in the blinds edged down until she could no longer admire her picturesque driveway. "One of Quinn's teachers just called," she said, flicking on the lamp. "She's on her way here now. Wants to talk to us about Quinn joining some club at school?"
Expelling a huff, Russell muted the TV. "Quinn?" he yelled, angling his neck back towards the staircase.
Judy thrust both hands out, palms turned at the floor, like the motion would temper the levels of aggression that were wafting from her husband. "Calm down, Russell. It didn't seem like our Quinnie was in any sort of trouble."
"Why else would a teacher be on their way over here at this time in the evening?"
It may have been a question. But experience had taught Judy that she was in no way permitted to respond.
Upstairs, Santana and Brittany looked at one another, and then at Quinn, who was sat at her computer in a seeming daze.
"Hey! Earth to Fabgay," the Latina poked.
"What?"
"Alright, something's definitely up with you," Santana said, chopping the knife of her hand at her throat like an unsatisfied director who was calling for the take to be cut. She sat up on Quinn's bed and curled her feet beneath herself, her shoulder brushing into Brittany's with quiet tenderness. "First you just take off and leave me in charge of the Cheerios this morning - wouldn't tell us what Berry wanted with you, and now you're answering to Fabgay? What gives?"
"Yeah Quinn. What's wrong? Did you dye your hair and have it come out green again, and that's why you're sad?" Brittany wondered aloud, to which both Quinn and Santana frowned.
"B, Q's hair's not green though. It's blonde."
"Good point, baby." Brittany snuggled in close to the olive-skinned Latina and brushed her lips against her cheek. "You're so smart."
Santana drew her fingertip along the tall blue-eyed blonde's palm. Her eyes quieted to two soft chocolate circles, sweet and gooey as she insisted, "so are you, Britt-Britt, which is why we had to teach Wilde a lesson for saying that you weren't."
One might have thought that somebody had passed a particularly lethal fart – the way that disdain befell Brittany's face at the mention of the mean girl's surname.
Quinn shot her two friends a glare. "What'd I tell you guys about being all over each other when you're here? Cut it out, or get out!"
Before Santana could cash in on her chance to cut a bitch, Quinn's bedroom door eased open.
"Yo, what up Judy?" Brittany enthused, throwing up her fingers like she was in a gang.
As if the pale suspended hand was a loaded gun that needed to be detained, Santana lowered it to the bed sheets, all whilst sniggering off into her own shoulder, because the horror and affront that had etched itself into Mrs Fabray's features more than warranted abdominals that jumped mirthfully.
Judy regarded the peculiar blonde for a moment, offering her the most pained mechanical smile, before looking to her daughter, who instantly sighed.
"They're my friends," Quinn asserted, unapologetic.
"I didn't say anything," Judy protested, projecting a portrait of innocence. She ran a hand through her wiry blonde hair, dusted off the fluff that clung to her cardigan, and stood up just that little bit straighter. "One of your teachers is downstairs. She wants to talk to your father and I about something. We think you should be there too. So your… friends," she said, almost as if the word was a hot knife through her gut, "are going to have to leave."
Quinn's eyelids flickered as she felt her senses shroud and her forehead grow clammy. "W-Which teacher?"
"Does it matter?"
Oh it mattered, because if this was it – the night that her intolerant parents were to find out about her dirty little secret – Quinn needed to be able to prepare for the shit storm that was coming her way.
No Faberry in this chapter. But there will be in the next ;) To the first person to review the previous chapter, I wasn't hiding key info for suspense purposes. It's more that it was clear that I needed to elaborate after the response to chapter one, which was why you guys got more of the backstory :) Also, I genuinely appreciate you giving me constructive tips. The fact that you offered up the span/spun correction suggests to me that you see potential in my work, and would like to assist me in fine-tuning it, which is flattering. But I will say that the, 'please get that right!' felt a little rude.