The hallways of the academy were achingly empty on Sundays. Of course, anyone living in a confinement like that took their every opportunity to escape when they could; this made it a little more comforting to Quinn Fabray. When surrounded by flocks of people had always been when Quinn had felt most alone, and the feeling only grew with the realization that she didn't know herself, never mind the sea of nameless faces she saw regularly. As she walked through the empty ground floor corridors that appeared wider when they were abandoned, she could smell a mixture of scents wafting from the kitchens, making her nose twitch with curiosity and her stomach ache with hunger. Aside from the hazelnut latte she bought at the Starbucks earlier that day, Quinn hadn't eaten a thing and was suddenly realizing how ravenous she was. A day and a half of unyielding emotions and humiliation, she was ready to eat. And seeing as how she no longer cared what people thought about her - step one of finding who you truly are - she planned to really enjoy herself.
She walked into the almost endless dining hall, with only two other girls chit-chatting at the other side of the room. The breakfast items had been cleared away not long ago, only leaving wet rings from mugs of tea and coffee, and breadcrumbs from the buttered toast Quinn had missed out on. She passed through the door on the other side of the monstrously long dining table, and poked her head into the kitchen, where twenty odd women in white chefs uniforms went about making today's food. They carried out their work slowly and relaxed, the day being so early, and a few of them washed dishes by hand over a soapy sink.
"Can I help you, m'dear?"
Quinn was taken aback by a heavyset Scottish cook passing with a basin of flour, her auburn eyebrow raised.
"I, um... I missed breakfast-"
"Taken your time gettin' out of bed in the mornin', aye?" the woman asked, smirking knowingly.
"Actually, I had to meet a friend this morning, but... What smells so good?" asked Quinn, rudely interrupted by the enticing smell of sugar and cinnamon.
The Scottish woman smiled proudly. "That'll be my cinny buns."
"Huh?" asked Quinn, before the chef pointed to one of her tall and slender co-workers, removing a tray of cinnamon buns from the oven, each fat and soft and bursting with a buttery cinnamon centre. Quinn licked her lips as another chef poured a cup of thick creamy icing on top.
"They're for tonight's dessert," nodded the Scottish chef.
"That's too bad. I could eat, like, a hundred right now," sighed Quinn.
"One with an appetite for a change. I end up scraping every morsel of the food we slaved over all day save for the salad," complained the woman, rolling her pale blue eyes up to the heavens, "I'll tell ya right now, these lassies'll take one look at me cinny buns and run for the hills, 'fraid the butter and sugar'll stick to their skinny frames. You're a little thing, aren't ya? I hope you don't have nightmares about calories and the like."
Quinn smirked. "I don't really care about that stuff anymore."
"Well, good! Come in, come in, if these rabbits won't eat 'em, at least you can tell me how my cinny buns taste, eh?"
"Oh, that's okay-"
"Ah, go on, will ya?"
Quinn didn't need to be convinced any further. She slipped past the chef and sidled up to the slender woman setting the tray of buns on the counter.
"Don't make a mess," the thin woman said, putting a bun on a napkin and handing it to Quinn, wrinkles set into her frown.
Quinn didn't let her hands stay idle and bit deep in the cinnamon bun, sighing as the taste of warm, sweet bread and buttery cinnamon sugar fill her mouth. She hadn't tasted anything as delicious in weeks, and she licked the mild, sticky sugar icing off her lips with a satisfied smile.
"This is amazing," she said, her mouth still half full of the cinnamon pastry, turning to the Scottish woman.
The chef smiled and nodded, her blue eyes twinkling. "Tell us yer name, lass?"
"Quinn," she said, swallowing.
"Lovely name," smiled the woman, "I'm Mariota. Since you've missed breakfast, Quinn, you ought to be positively ravenous."
Quinn smiled sheepishly, and nodded.
"Well, take a seat, love, there's more where that came from."
xxx
Santana and Brittany pinky-linked through the corridors. It was something they did regularly, but rarely in public. Don't get her wrong, Santana is proud of who she is, but committing and putting her whole heart into something sounded so much riskier than being single and ready to mingle. Not that she mingled much.
Her pinky curled tighter around the other girl's when she noticed her tall, blond friend frowning, her eyebrows knitted together. Brittany was rarely so troubled.
"What's wrong, Britt?" she asked, even though she already knew well.
"I feel so bad for Quinn," sighed Brittany, "We should have let her keep her secret."
Santana winced. Brittany always sidled in to share the blame for Santana's faults. She always said 'we' when she should have been saying 'you'.
"Secrets don't help anybody, Brittany."
"But maybe we could have waited until she was ready to tell us."
Santana sighed. "That's probably what we should have done. I should have listened to you, Britt. Everyone knows you're the smart one."
Brittany showed a hint of a smile, her brow still furrowed with worry.
"Where did she go?" she asked morosely, as if her puppy ran away or her goldfish had been secretively flushed down the toilet.
"Probably to get away from things. To relax a little. Like our hideout."
Brittany smiled brightly. "We should show Quinn our hideout."
"Huh?"
"Yeah! We apologize to her and then we share our secret hideout with her."
"Britt, I don't know. I'm all for getting my sorry on, but our hideout? That's our secret getaway. Our... cuddle spot. I don't think it should be shared with anyone."
Brittany stopped walking in the silent hall and cocked her head to the side, frowning.
"Don't you want to make things right?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then this is how. Trust me. I'm the smart one, remember?"
Santana blinked and sighed, a smile creeping up onto her full lips. "I know I know..."
"Great! Let's go find my Barbie!" Brittany beamed, clutching her best friend's hand and frolicking through the hallway to look for Quinn. Brittany's keen sense of smell ended up leading them to the girl. Distracted by the strong scent of baked sugar and cinnamon, Brittany cried 'Ooh' and swerved in the direction of the empty dining hall. Well, almost empty.
Santana raised one fine black eyebrow at the dainty blond sitting at the end of the massive dining table, alone, leaning over a plate of gooey cinnamon rolls and a recipe book.
"Barbie!" cried Brittany without thinking. She let go of Santana's hand and sprinted to Quinn, throwing her arms over the girl's slim shoulders in a crushing bear hug.
"Brittany!" gasped Quinn, looking surprised and struggling to breath.
"Ease up, Britt," Santana said quietly, approaching the embracing girls. She had her eyes down on the waxed surface of the cherry wood table, guilt weighing down on her shoulders. She'd always been known for her snappish words getting her into trouble, but she'd never been ashamed of whatever had come out of her own mouth until she saw the crushing hysteria of Quinn's past in her leafy eyes.
"What are you guys doing here?" Quinn said stiffly, smoothing down her thin cotton dress and wiping a small spec of icing off the corner of her mouth.
"We wanted to say we're sorry," shrugged Brittany, ringing her hands together with her shoulders raised, optimistic.
Quinn looked down at her plate of half eaten goods. She was grateful, but she was embarrassed. Her outburst had contained everything she didn't want them to know, but perhaps it was good to be upfront with who she was to others now.
Brittany looked at Santana, her big eyes sparkling in the dim light of the dining hall.
"Yeah, Quinn..." said Santana, unversed and awkward with apologies, "We really are. Sorry."
"It's okay," said Quinn, but it barely came out as a whisper. Genuine apologies were rare.
"It's not okay," Santana sighed, and shook her shoulders as if shaking away her guilt, "... I didn't know."
"You couldn't have," Quinn said with surprise, looking straight up into the girl's deep dark eyes, "I'm sorry."
Santana looked confused, her brow furrowing and her lips curling down in a frown. "What? Quinn, you have nothing to be sorry for."
Quinn smirked. "Everyone has got to stop saying that. It's time I step up and accept some responsibility."
"What are you talking about?" asked Santana, taking a seat beside the girl in one of the cold wooden dining room chairs, Brittany following suit.
"I haven't been honest about who I am at all. I'm not... cool. I'm not a party girl or a drinker. I'm just... me. Whoever that is. I don't even know who I am."
"Well, nobody does, Q," shrugged Santana, "We're not supposed to. We're teenagers. Now's the time to figure that kind of stuff out."
Quinn nodded, her lips pursed together. "Exactly. That's why I need your help."
Santana glanced at Brittany, and back to the other blond. "Help?"
"Finding yourself has to be so much harder in a place like this. The rules, the uniform..."
"You definitely end up feeling like one of Headmistress Sylvester's emotionless autobots."
"Decepticons," corrected Brittany.
"I need to get out," Quinn said, pushing away her plate of cinnamon rolls with determination, "And I thought you'd be the person to go to if I want to get any hints about how to get expelled."
Santana smirked. "Now what would make you think a thing like that?"
Quinn smiled, shaking her head slightly. "I hear things. So, can you help me?"
Santana picked at a fingernail uneasily. "It's not that simple... I can't get dragged down too. I mean, I can't leave Brittany."
Quinn glanced between the Latina and the All American blond. Of course she couldn't. Quinn briefly pondered on what it would be like to be so tethered to one person that you wouldn't be able to bear being apart. She assumed it was more of a nuisance than it was worth.
"You wouldn't be implicated... I just need some ideas," said Quinn, her green eyes pleading.
Santana shrugged, and broke into a smile. "Ideas I can do."
"Thank you," sighed Quinn.
"We have something we want to show you," Brittany smiled brightly, practically tearing herself apart with excitement.
"Sure," said Quinn, "I just have something I need to do first. Is that okay?"
Brittany pouted, but nodded her head. "Okay. But hurry!"
xxx
Quinn shivered in her day dress and buttoned her cardigan. She could feel October approaching as she walked through the empty corridors. She passed a dusty window and spied the small stone chapel hiding behind a sparse patch of trees, their leaves wrinkling and spotting brown. It felt odd not having to go to church on a Sunday, especially being in a Catholic school now. She made a note to visit the small chapel later. For now, she had business to attend to.
She felt like she was going in for a job interview as she walked into the vast library, and she told herself to stop being so nervous. The memory of her humiliation during Sugar Motta's house party bubbled up in her brain, causing her to involuntarily shudder. She hoped no one at the school had heard about it. Dropping her desire to rule the school by no means meant she had no regard for her reputation.
Jesse wasn't haunting his usual post behind the counter. All that inhabited the librarian's space was the dangerously outdated computer, and a few books with dust caked into the corners of the spines. She peered over the desk in case he was crouching below and rummaging through the cabinets, but he was nowhere to be found. That is until she noticed that the back room door was slightly ajar, and a dim light glowed behind it.
She slid her small frame behind the desk and pushed one hand against the door. The back room appeared smaller than it was, fraught with stacks of encyclopedias and filing cabinets. Jesse's brow was furrowed as he hunched over a stack, shuffling the books into alphabetical order. His eyes quivered upwards and widened with recognition, his fingers freezing over the leather bound volumes.
"Quinn," he said, his mouth twitching into a pleasantly surprised smile.
"I hope this isn't a bad time," she said, her hands clasped together as he rose from the ground and shook dust off of his white t-shirt.
"Not at all," he said, stepping a few feet towards her, his silvery eyes eager and his face flawlessly shaven, "How may I help you?"
Under the yellowish light of the small room, he reached one long arm over her shoulder and pushed the door closed, Quinn tensing at the closeness of their bodies. Any boy invading her personal bubble sent shivers along her back, ever since Puck. She lowered her eyes to the squeaky clean state of Jesse's dress shoes.
"I wanted to let you know that I won't be working for you anymore," she said quietly, wanting to get this over and done with. When he didn't reply, her eyes fluttered up to his to catch his reaction and was surprised him smirking smugly.
"I hope I didn't work you too hard in these short few days."
"No, of course not-"
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No. You've been great."
"Quinn, there's no need to be embarrassed."
Quinn's mouth fell open and her eyebrows knitted together.
"I'm not."
"Quinn," he smirked condescendingly, "It's okay."
Quinn stomach gurgled. This was exactly the conversation she wanted to avoid. She preferred the painful humiliation to Jesse's pity.
"You're blushing," he noticed as she felt her cheeks getting hot.
She rolled her eyes. It didn't take a genius to know that Quinn felt embarrassed and degraded at the mere mention of last night's ordeal. She could just imagined the way Rachel Berry wrinkled her nose at the acidic smell of Quinn's alcohol and stress induced vomit. The very thought made her cheeks grow even hotter, making Jesse chuckle at the increased redness.
"That's not why I'm stepping down," said Quinn, blinking and trying to regain her cool composure. She was telling God's honest truth. As much as she wanted to shrink away from the humiliation of what happened in front of Rachel and Jesse, there was a much more pressing factor that she no longer needed to be with Jesse. She didn't need a boyfriend anymore, so she would quit the chase. Especially now that he had been scooped by Rachel Berry herself. There was no reason to be stuck with a boring job that didn't pay.
But Jesse just stood there, smirking knowingly, his eyes hungrily lingering over her. He brushed a loose blond lock of her hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear with a subtle caress to the side of her head. She stiffened uncomfortably, her eyes on his hand as he pulled it away, grinning openly to show his array of straight white teeth.
"You're adorable when you're humiliated," he noted, his voice soft and luscious.
"What are you doing?" she asked, averting her eyes to the small window that overlooked an ocean of coniferous trees. Her arms were tight and still on either side and she felt the pulsating need to walk away and not look back.
"Quinn? Still with the coy school girl facade?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, with mock exhaustion in his voice. He slid his hand against her arm and leaned in, planting his lips firmly on hers.
It took her a moment to register that Jesse St. James was kissing her, and his hand was moving to the small of her back. She tensed more stiffly than ever under the feeling of his dry lips and she pulled away when his tongue snaked against her stubbornly closed lips.
She held up her arms almost in defense and she felt her face contort angrily.
"Jesse!" she snapped, though he was clearly confused and speechless by their sudden broken embrace.
"I thought this was what you wanted," he said, his parted lips now moist.
"No!"
"No? You wanted to kiss me just last night, Quinn. Or was I getting mixed signals?"
Quinn's face relaxed and she slumped her shoulders, frowning sheepishly. How could she have forgotten about how she led the boy along the entire past week? Every flirty glance and brushed hands had been leading up to this, and clearly he was baffled as to why she was so angry about it. She played the part of the ready and willing virgin school girl. Only, Rachel had played it more convincingly. Or perhaps Rachel wasn't playing at all.
"What about Rachel?" asked Quinn, the thought of it only just occurring to her as she relived the moment she'd stumbled upon Rachel and Jesse interlocked in a passionate embrace, their lips connected intimately.
"What about Rachel?"
"Aren't you two... an item? I walked in you guys getting seriously hot and heavy, right before..."
Jesse shook his head, smiling even wider than before to show off his sharp incisors, and running his fingers through his stringy dark hair.
"You didn't strike me as the type of girl to think a kiss seals the deal of commitment, Quinn Fabray," he smirked.
Quinn pursed her lips. She definitely wasn't. "Rachel seems like that kind of girl, though," she said, squinting her pale green eyes at Jesse, "Are you sure she doesn't think that the whole commitment deal has been sealed?"
Jesse scoffed. "Do you care? You don't even like her?"
Quinn flinched and opened her mouth in defense. "Of course I don't. But... I don't like unfaithful men either."
"How can I be unfaithful to someone I'm not committed to?" Jesse chuckled, "Contrary to what you seem to believe, I at no point agreed to be Rachel's boyfriend, and the possibility of the future of me as Mr. Rachel Berry is exceedingly doubtful. I was just having fun, Quinn. She's a kid. She's clingy. Needy."
"She's the same age as I am."
"You're an old soul, Quinn."
Quinn scowled. "You don't know me."
His smile faded and he eyes her up and down, lingering longingly around her torso. "I want to know you," he said enticingly.
Quinn rolled her eyes. She knew what was meant when a guy as smooth as Jesse said something like that. He didn't want to know her. He wanted to her know her touch. Her body. Her skin was beginning to crawl and she hated this twisted mess she created. Every she touches seemed to fall to pieces.
"No, you don't," she replied all too knowingly, shaking her head.
The only things that made Jesse think she was pretty were her unnaturally beautiful face and her slim, athletic body. She saw the way his eyes lingered over her flat stomach and her perky chest. He was a pig just like the rest of them.
"Yes, I do," he sighed, edging closer.
"You don't," Quinn pressed, her lips pursed tight and stern.
She watched Jesse's jaw clench visibly as his frustration grew. She easily took him for a guy who didn't know how to take no for an answer. He made the great accident of mistaking the tense atmosphere for a passionate one. He lunged forward, and with an intense grip, he grabbed Quinn by the shoulders and pulled her forward in some sort of tight bear hug. This time when he kissed her his tongue snaked into her mouth like a forceful serpent and she had it in the back of her mind to bite it, but she refrained. His breathing became heavy and warm against her as he leaned into her, his hands sliding over her body. Pushing her arms hard against his rapidly rising chest, she wriggled out of his grasp and wiped her mouth, her anger and repulsion showing in her expression.
"That's enough!" she said, hating the desperation she could hear in her voice, "I don't like you, Jesse, and I definitely don't like being manhandled."
"Don't be stupid, Quinn."
"Excuse me?"
Jesse smirked and with another 'passionate' lunge he had Quinn pinned against the wall. In that moment she suspected she was more annoyed than scared, feeling his baby soft skin rubbing against hers, but she started to panic as she scrambled out of his grip without success, his hard hands clutching against hers tighter as he backed her into a corner, still wildly nuzzling her neck as she yelled out for him to stop, his hands wriggling all over her body, sliding under the hem of her dress.
"Get off of her!"
Quinn Fabray had never heard such a ferocious yell from such a small girl. Jesse jumped practically a foot away from Quinn, whose arms fell limp at her side at the relieving side of Rachel Berry standing helplessly in the doorway, her face contorted with pain and disgust. Her mouth hung open in disbelief as she watched Jesse storm out of the back room, his face growing scarlet.
Rachel's stare lingered out of the door watching Jesse leave the scene, and a wave of guilt washed over Quinn. She could see something breaking in Rachel's eyes as a piece of her innocence shattered at the recognition that not everyone she liked and trusted was what they seemed. And Quinn felt that was her fault. Rachel's naivety wasn't exactly intact having seen the ugliness of human behavior.
"Are you okay?" asked Quinn, attempting to smooth down her clothes that were slightly askew on her body.
Rachel tore her eyes away from the door and as they landed on Quinn they burned with what could only be fury. Quinn looked down and braced herself for the words she would probably deserve.
"Are you that vapid?" asked Rachel.
Quinn sighed and stared at the floor.
"You just got sexually assaulted and you're asking me if I'm okay? You're a strange girl, Quinn Fabray."
Quinn looked back up, surprised. "It's just... you liked him."
Rachel scoffed and shrugged. "And I thought he liked me. But that's not the issue at hand, Quinn. Are you..." she said, walking closer, her hand twitching as if she wanted to place it on Quinn's shoulder but decided against it, "Are you okay?"
Quinn nodded. "I'm fine."
"We can have him fired immediately."
"No, I'm fine. Really, Rachel, it's not worth it."
"Are you sure, because my dads have friends who are lawyers-"
"No. I- Thank you, but no. I don't want to have to talk about this to other people. I just want to forget about it. He'll most likely quit now, anyways, before he gets into anymore trouble."
Rachel frowned. "Probably. If you ever want to talk, I'm here."
Quinn looked down, the corner of her mouth rising in a coy half smile. "I appreciate it, but I already have someone I can talk to."
"Oh," Rachel nodded, almost looking disappointed.
Quinn cocked her head and considered the idea. Would it really be so bad to confide in Rachel Berry? She threw the idea out of her mind. Rachel was certainly a kind and honest girl, but Quinn learned the hard way not to be so trusting. Besides, she had someone more reliable she could talk to.
xxx
Quinn shivered, walking into the school's private chapel. It was hardly big enough to fit the devout Catholic community of Lima, never mind an academy of irreligious school girls. Quinn figured that the size of the church indicated to why mass on Sundays wasn't mandatory. She wondered if this small house of God even had a priest. She rubbed her hands together in the cold, disappointed with the lack of a confession booth. She'd been hoping to get things off of her chest, but she settled that prayer was just as good. The small chapel was completely empty, so she took her pick of the very front pew and kneeled down before the mural of the blue-eyed baby Jesus.
She clutched her pale white hands together and held them to her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut and thinking about how to say what she wanted to. It had always been easier before - reciting repetitive prayers taken out of a children's illustrated bible before bedtime. Now that she was on her own, no rules and regulations about how to talk to the one being that was supposed to love her more than anything else could, she found herself lost for words.
"Hello, God," she whispered, even though she was completely alone, "I'm not sure how to get the ball rolling, exactly. It's been so long... I hope you don't think I've lost faith."
She paused a moment, unsure how to proceed with the glassy eyes of the saints watching her from the stained windows.
"I need a mission. I always have. I used to think it was to get popular, but once I got that, it wasn't enough," she sighed, "And you know what came out of my ... boredom. I've hurt so many people... I want to stop. My parents, Puck, Beth, not to mention all of those people I tormented back in Lima just because they reminded me of what I used to be. And now Rachel has to deal with losing the guy she liked just because I'm a predatorial bitch..."
Quinn looked around at the empty space. It was so much easier to admit how she felt about herself with no one around.
"I hate who I pretend to be," she admitted quietly, "I want to find out who I really am, because whoever that is has to be better than Quinn."
She quietly wondered if remaining Lucy would have been better for everyone. She wondered if Lucy was who she really was.
"I need your help," she concluded, "I know you don't owe me anything, but if you give me a chance, I want to make your proud. Amen."
She stood up, her knees wobbly and nervous. She had a sudden ill feeling in her stomach, as if scared to reveal who she really was in case she didn't like it.