A/N: This is mostly a filler chapter, to give you and Rachel a little look into Quinn's past. The next should be more interesting.
Rachel doesn't go back to the club the next night. Noah texts periodically, asking where she is, until she finally switches her cellphone off and tosses it under the bed for good measure. Usually, on a Saturday night, she's at Discovery watching as Noah gets wasted and throws himself at other girls - or at a party watching a very similar scene play out. This Saturday, she stays in with her dads watching Funny Girl for the millionth time, despite her desire to find Quinn and get a valid explanation from her. In her drunken state the night before, she let the cheerleader fob her off with a crappy excuse. Now that she's lucid, she wouldn't mind something substantial.
Most of the evening is a blur, and Rachel can recall only four main points: police, Quinn, Noah and drugs. These aspects of the night are all too clear in her mind.
The policeman, she remembers, is a man who would have been handsome, if not for his lacking personality. He accused her of something. Possession, she thinks. Mr Schue says that's nine-tenths of the law but, having no real knowledge of anything outside of musical theatre and sex, the words may as well have been Swahili to Rachel Berry. All she knows is that last night was a very, very close call.
Also, Noah is an asshole. This isn't a recent discovery. It isn't really even a discovery - he's always been an asshole, and she's never been under the illusion of anything otherwise. It's just that last night epitomised his inability to think of anyone else. She can only be thankful that the policeman took Quinn's words at face value, or she'd be screwed right about now.
Quinn. Quinn is Rachel's most vivid recollection. She remembers, guiltily, the way seeing the cheerleader had made her throat drier than the Sahara and somewhere else quite the opposite. The memory alone makes her breathing hitch ever so slightly, and she flushes.
If her fathers notice, they don't say anything.
Rachel never used to think about Quinn Fabray. Ever. Not since after the babygate disaster, when the blonde had slowly begun to sever ties with anything remotely linking her to glee club and a negative status on the school's radar. Slowly, the girl had worked her way back up to the top where she currently sat, lording it over William McKinley High School.
Where the drugs raps fit in, Rachel doesn't know. It's never comes up in school, she's sure of that. There's probably some unsubstantiated rumours she can rake for if she tries hard enough, but Rachel isn't certain they're enough to rest her over-working mind. This leaves her only one option: talk to Quinn. It's not an idea that instills the same sense of trepidation that it used to. Quinn did something nice for her last night - the nicest thing anyone's ever done for her, she's certain. That has to mean something, right?
The movie flashes past on the screen, with the barest of acknowledgements from the three on the sofa - the teen because she's lost in her own thoughts, and her fathers because they can do nothing but marvel at their daughter's lack of enthusiasm for Streisand. Sam, the taller African-American, furrows his brow and he opens his mouth to comment but is cut off by a sharp nudge from his husband's elbow. He winces, and shoots a glare at the smaller man who reciprocates in a fashion that says, "we just got her back, don't ruin that". Despite his paternal instincts, the man concedes and wraps his arms around Frank gingerly, face breaking into a small smile as his spouse snuggles into his warm embrace. Rachel will talk to them soon enough. It's very rare for her not to.
When Monday rolls by, Rachel still hasn't said a word to either of her fathers about what's troubling her. Sam tries to bring it up at breakfast, but the second he does she's up like a shot, out of the door and warbling excuses about how she needs to see Mr Schuester before class. The black man sighs, running a hand over his shaved head and receives a shrug from his husband. "What can you do?"
Sam misses the days when they had an unpopular daughter who worked under the misapprehension that talking to her parents was cool, they both do. Was that horrible of them? To wish that their daughter didn't have friends? It is horrible, the man certifies in his mind - but he's not sure it's uncalled for.
At school, Rachel hasn't gone to see Mr Schuester or even anywhere near the choir room. Instead, she works up the nerve to approach school royalty. She paces up and down the corridor in front of the other girl's locker, until she hears a throat clear behind her and she jerks her head towards the intrusion.
Jacob Ben Israeli stands, looking at her with those creepy, beady little eyes. "This is my spot," he says, and Rachel fights the urge to laugh. She raises a sceptical eyebrow at him, and he reiterates, "This is my spot."
"Meaning?" she encourages.
"Meaning, that I have been coming here for six weeksto get my hands on that fine piece of ass and you are not going to mess that up for me." At the questioning look he adds, "Quinn. Someday she will see that ours is a love to last the ages."
This time, Rachel actually does laugh. "'A love to last the ages'? You just called her a 'fine piece of ass'!"
"Whatever, just get out of my space. You're cramping my style."
"Yeah, 'cause Quinn's gonna just come by and declare she wants you. Get real." Rachel doesn't know why she's keeping the conversation going. She's actually glad that the boy's moved his disturbing obsession to someone else - she just doesn't like that that someone is Quinn. For that, she doesn't have a reason.
"Are you kidding? The girl's a trainwreck. It's time to pounce." He does some kind of tiger claw, and Rachel cringes. There is something seriously wrong with this boy.
Once she replays the words in her mind, she let's a curious question slip, "Trainwreck?" There is a small smirk on her lips. Maybe she won't have to confront Quinn after all.
"Uh-huh," he says with a nod, "Word on the street is she's a total junkie. Drug dealer too. A criminal record longer than your list of extra-curriculars. Some day, she's gonna be desperate. And I'll be here waiting for her to fall into my arms."
Rachel's caught between being thankful that she got the info without having to part with her underwear, and severely ticked off at how lowly her thinks of Quinn. "She'll never be that desperate! She'll never even be desperate." She should cut herself off there, at extreme risk of embarrassment, but she's struck with a case of verbal diarrhoea and the words keep coming faster than she can stop them. "She may have problems, sure. So she does drugs? Along with half of the student body. She has a criminal record? So did Robert Downey Jr. and look where he ended up! So maybe you just need to back off and leave her alone, because the last thing she needs is some little creep like you hounding her twenty-four/seven. She is a beautiful, talented girl who is going to make something of herself one day. Without you."
Jacob just looks stunned.
"Well, Berry, if you and JewFro are done fighting over me, I'd like to get into my locker." Rachel whips around to find herself practically nose-to-nose with Quinn. Oh boy. That's embarrassing. Oddly enough, she thinks she can see the tiniest hint of a blush on the cheerleader's cheeks but before she can investigate further she's shoved roughly out of the way as Quinn barges her way past to the lockers. Jacob moves out of the way quickly, but not without taking a giant whiff of the air around her. Rachel cringes along with Quinn. Once he's gone, all of Rachel's usual bravado is stripped away by the blonde's presence. After an awkward moment's silence, she addresses the other girl. "Can we talk?"
"No," is Quinn's short answer, and she's already walking to her first class. Rachel follows her with her gaze for a moment, but soon the cheerleader is lost amongst the bustling crowd of students. Now what?
