Hi guys, sorry for the long wait. It seems as though I've had a writer's block for about two weeks or so. Not that I am uninspired or anything of that nature, it's more that there were just too many emotions I was contending with in this story to make a coherent chapter. I guess too many hours were spent inside of my head. Herein, there's probably a lot of complex thought or inferences. Regardless, the chapter has arrived! Right?

Let me know what you think ;)

Also, check out can't help falling in love (Keaton Henson's cover). It's beautiful!

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Chapter 3

Trigger warnings (Just a disclaimer)

The temperament of your conscience is impetuous. It's chronic dawn of devastation and destruction is ravaged through a dark, hallowed flame you prefer to keep secret. Under guard. Few have known the true elements it offers and you, with your prudent and inherited grace, have it swept under a guised rug. An artifact that has its viewing on desperate occasion.

Dark, polished nails; deep and incongruous to the ambition she preys, grazes the coffee stained paper of your diary. You glance up.

"I'm sorry." She says. The coffee mark, she claims with a tidying thumb.

There's a rope that attaches itself to your throat and it tightens, but a wafting smell awakens your senses. You exhale. Her coffee breath moves you like always. "Feeling…morbid? The tightness in your throat you swallow down, as your mind probes where it doesn't belong. Rachel laughs; it's dark and luscious. Her brunette tresses tumble down her shoulders in a manner just so, her child-like fingers could brush them away.

"Insufficient. I'm feeling insufficient." She supplies, the brown in her eyes sparkle as she says it and you feel your chest expand as you slip her a smile. The coffee cup is tardily pushed away from the reach of your diary and you don't oppose the gesture.

"What can I do to make it otherwise?" Bravado steels your exterior.

"Quinn." She warns as though she knows you are about to kick off the hospital blanket and start laps with the I.V. pole. Only she knows how good you are with a pole, but you both never talk about that night. She squints at her lap, her eyelashes fluttering. It is apparent she holds back.

"My writing," You start because she won't. "You don't like it." Rachel's indifferent expression falters slightly, but she still miraculously maintains anonymity.

"I know how important it is to you." She says slowly and your jaw unwittingly hardens. Rachel grips at the fabric of her skirt like she struggles to stop herself, you watch those hands turn white. You watch them like you do always.

"I hate it." Your voice splinters and she regards you with a look that is eerily desperate (she had been stung). Perhaps she had caught on to your involuntary, well-hidden display of frustration. "I never use to write like this at all." You say and she pauses mid-stare at your hand, that you're sure her eyes swallow it whole. That, you're sure, because you've been lost under her gaze before, that they bear the same intensity she carries to work and home each and everyday. The soul of her music, the soul of her soul. It devours you complete and absolute. She takes your hand and you forget a little of the dark, treacherous and tried road you were in danger of travelling. You take a different path - less travelled. "The only thing I wrote about was project deadlines and college hook-ups." You say. You don't know at which point Rachel had departed her attention to the 'other place', but you see her eyebrows raise at the bed sheets.

"Maybe you don't like it." She shrugs, there's no smile at the mercy of her lips, no titled expression. Her gaze steers toward you. "But you do write because it helps."

"Because I have to." The voice that escapes your throat sounds tired. "I'm compelled to, and it's not just because she thinks to say so." Rachel shakes her head, unhappy with the attitude of the statement. She would scold you, you know, but she doesn't because you're still not 100%.

" 'She' is right." She says. "It helps you express things you can't tell me, or even yourself."

"I show you everyday." You counter. Your pulse quickens on the underside of your wrist. You feel it thump, only there.

"And some things, " She says sullenly, her hands coming together on her lap like a point of finality. "Can't be shown." You know what she means and there's a jolt that rattles along your spine, every nerve firing in response to a stimulus too harsh to squander. At that moment, the door is forced open. You hear the hinges squeak in protest and Rachel jump to her feet. Bitter emotion erupts inside of you, as though a rare, polished stone has just been snatched away. Santana strides in oblivious, her hips swaying to the rhythm of her own beat, and you register that same testing presence the girl always brings.

"Good news." Santana ventures. Rachel stiffens slightly and you push yourself into a sitting position, aspiring to be a part of the conversation. Santana watches you with an alarmed look until Rachel rushes to your side. She rearranges your pillows and blanket and you glance away, partially embarrassed and upset.

"Dr Harper is willing to discharge you early." A voice protrudes from the door. There's an urge to push it back, but there's also an urge to discover his contention- you're not afraid to hang him out to dry. He steps in; his soft, honey hair slicked back, long elegant fingers pulled behind him and holding, you automatically presume, your results. He looks relieved as he walks toward your assigned hospital bed; a smile breaking out across his face like uncontrolled acne. Perhaps, you are the only good news he will be telling today. You leave 'hanging him out to dry' for another time.

"You're results are back." He says, approaching the bed and the sun falls away from your window. The light on your doctor's face ebbs away and it seems the day, that is here quite often, has left so its' presence could be in a place elsewhere. On cue he says, "I'd say they're promising." The room's lighting kicks in and it's blinding inside.

…

The car ride home is silent, for the first time you don't hear the engine of the car, the traffic outside, or even 'you' most of all. The noise you make of just living, you do not hear. The luxury of sitting in the back seat is not an option for you today and it is a distraction enough to forget that maybe there is reason you need to talk to Dr Beckwith.

The car pulls up at the house and a childish urge to lock yourself in the car creeps up on you.

"Something's wrong." Rachel says. "I just- I just can't escape the feeling that there's something wrong." You don't say anything. You see her bite her lip through your periphery. "There's something wrong Quinn." By this time, her hands are off the steering wheel and unchecking your seat belt from its holder. She pulls the belt off of you and she touches you lightly on your arm.

"I'm sorry." The sound of her voice threads though every dark thought in your mind. "I shouldn't have made you sit at the front. I thought maybe something was up and I just kind of hoped it wasn't the case. But you're not okay."

"It doesn't take a doctor to see that. I can see that you're not okay, Quinn. Please-"

You finally have the courage to look at her and you're flashed with a memory of the long and difficult time it had taken you to be able to sit in a car again. The prospect of this bearing similarity to that, frightens you.

"Rachel." You approach slowly. Her eyes dart, perhaps she's concerned whether she's in fact ready to face what you're about to say. But you say, "Can we go inside?" Her hand tightens its' grip on the sleeve of your jumper as though she isn't ready for you to leave the car just yet, as thought there's a part of her that doesn't quite believe what you said. However, she lets go; unnaturally, in great protest her fingers retract from your arm and she pulls the keys from ignition.

"Yeah." She says. She nods. You push open your door and then she does too. You both look at each other from either side of the car. It's a dusty red Chevrolet Impala, your least expensive gift to Rachel in which she never had the heart to trade in. She's no taller than she was in High School but she appears taller now, the car like a barrier in time, you think you're staring at a lens into the future. You finally see how much she's grown, how far the distance she's travelled.

"We aren't kids no longer, are we?" You say to her later that night, when she's midway through a text message with your doctor. You're naked, the scars on your back made more apparent by the lighting in the room. She's sitting there at your dresser more content than she has ever been this week. Perhaps with your permission to see Dr Beckwith again this month, or your word of a confession, or for the first time in years a sense of resolve finally underpinning your relationship, your wife is able to relax.

"No." She says, and there's nothing to be said about that. But by the way she smiles, the way it's the same, the way it will always be the same suggests otherwise.

She takes her phone to the queen size bed you lay in, but deposits it as far from the both of you as possible. You don't question this and you don't suggest a safer option like the bedside table. Her breath slices along your abdomen to your chest, to your chin. A long black, strong and pure, sharp to the senses, to the touch.

"Quinn." She guides, as she pulls up her face parallel to yours. "We're 23." You search for song references, but you come up blank. Her expression presses onto something you highly anticipate and incidentally, something you are also unsure of.

"In Broadway terms, that's quite young."

"I'm not in Broadway, Rachel." She sends you a disbelieving look. "You could be." Your hair twirls around Rachel's fingers, she busies herself with it. "With what, your vocal habits and stage presence."

"I'm not singing to you tonight." You say, your voice still croaky, hoarse and raspy.

"Who said I wasn't into a bit of country? I like gravelly voices." You pass her a doubtful look.

"Pitchy is just fine too." She slides her small hand over your ribs; the scars there almost seem to beckon her. You watch Rachel kiss them.

"I know you have a lung infection, but Dr Harper says your lungs are pretty much clear." She adds, "And I heard you in the shower so I know you can." You take her hands in yours. She smiles, that hope you fell in love with in high school, ghosts itself in front of you.

It's not country, but it plays on your mind all day everyday. You touch her cheek hesitantly, she lets you but there's always something about it that pulls you back. You know this ballad she usually sings to you, but tonight your voice runs through the vocals. Your voice alone. As you take in her unmistakable beauty, your notes quiver. "Wise meenn say". Rachel smiles. "Only fooolss rush in."

Rachel strikes an imaginary guitar, at this point she's grinning. "But I, cannn't help, falllllling in loove wiith you." Your lips twitch as you watch her antics.

She shuts her eyes as she conducts the music, she guides you in. "Shallll III stay?" You gladly obey.

Rachel hums, her tiny fingers strumming your chest. "Would it beeeee uhh sin?"

If I, cannn't help, fallling in loove wiith you?" Rachel locks eyes with you. Like a river flows surely to the sea, she rolls onto you softly, predatorily. Her lips tumble onto yours. You don't know when or how, but you hear the soft music play from Rachel's phone.

"Take myyy hand." It sings. You arch your body underneath her as she blows raspberries over you abdomen. It's strangely euphoric, quaintly natural to you. The fine hairs on your skin want to edge away from the tickling sensation it creates, but your nerves- despite seizing violently- torture you with feeling, something you don't undervalue.

She's gentle as she takes reign of your body. It's the only time you allow yourself to relinquish control. The only time you feel safe doing so. She carries you away, like she always does. She makes you forget about all the insecurities, mistakes and past horrors. She makes you forget about everything but one thing.

Afterwards, you slip into a deep sleep and you dream about nothing. The rain wakes you in time for the next day and you forgo your morning run for breakfast. Rachel still slumbers, but you don't wake her because you know she spent most of the night watching you. Her dark hair colors the pale, white sheets of your bed as she lies there and you ponder as to what art this is. The phone is on the floor like most mornings. Stiffly, your back concaves so you are able to pick it up. Five missed calls from Kurt, one from Santana and a text message from Dr Beckwith. You straighten yourself out slowly, every muscles seems to ache. You wonder where the dancer in you has gone.

"Rachel. " You whisper. Your voice is louder than expected and you question whether your old one would ever return.

There's movement from the bed. It's faintly comical. Rachel sits up and you want to laugh, as much as her hair is for most part perfect, it appears it has lost its touch.

"What?" She says eyeing your amusement. She peers down at herself, examining her oversized T-shirt and then her skin- for hickeys you presume.

"What?" She repeats, this time with a smile that exudes lazy Sunday mornings. You laugh, then, she does.

"I like your hair." You say. She rolls her eyes. "You know how much Broadway talks about young, distinct stars." She shrugs. "They want authenticity."

"Like you'd ever turn up to work like that." Alarm permeates her features as she registers perhaps what you're really teasing about. "It's just not professional."

Rachel's in the bathroom before you can count to one. "Oh my goodness!" She shrieks. The bathroom door slams shut. "I'm never using your straightener ever again!"

"You hear me Quinn?!" She yells as you spin on your heels to get away.

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