The Looking Glass

by Nolongeractive009

Angels and Humans. Two worlds that contrast in almost every way begin to clash as four individuals are drawn together and change everything.

6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

To Unknown reviewer.

I looked at the scene of Quinn waking up in Finn's bed as it was in season 2. Finn and Quinn sleeping in the same bed and *cuddling* but not actually doing anything...But then again, my sister says that they had just finished having sex in that scene so maybe I'm just wrong in all ways.

Anyways I will have to mention a few things. First, this is Season 1 AU so I may use some of Glee's scenes but mess around with it to fit my story and I may not. Second, I am writing Quinn's parents in characterization to the show and not to stereotypical Christian parents. Remember the Fabray home is strict but also lives under a code of ignorance. How else would Quinn have gotten pregnant with Puck in the show and get close to Finn in the hot tub if her parents were exactly like the stereotype? Finally, Most of what you said (about the clothes) is a part of what I have planned and have already thought through so pat yourself on the back for noticing problems ahead!

So thank you for mentioning these things and I hope I have explained everything I can possibly can :)

Also, sorry for the wait D: life sucks when it gets in the way of important things like fanfiction hehe no I kid, I kid...but yeah sorry for the wait

Also, You recieve cookies and my congrats if you can spot the literary devices I have so geekily placed in this fic.

Also...enjoy ;)

I love reviews ಠ_ಠ

---

There have been rumors.

Rumors of a human...here...in their world, a human in black and red.

Whispers, hushed and confused, have reached every angel's ears willing to listen.

Whispers about Rachel being missing (what if she doesn't come back?) and then there is this human lurking about in their world...The way the Elders tell it makes it seem like a nightmare has broken from its dream world prison and thrust itself into reality, like this is the end of life as they know it.

Brittany doesn't like thinking about those things, she prefers to sit in the tallest tree branches and talk to her animal friends, she doesn't want to think about those paintings in the hut. Black and red paintings strewn about of humans crouched and looking more like animals, snarling and beastly

Brittany whimpers and looks back down to her hand, expelling those bad thoughts from her mind. Her fingertips touch her cheek, shakily removing the tracks of her tears that now trail down her heated cheeks, flushed with fear and other unexpected raw emotions.

A tickling sensation drags her eyes down to the dainty ladybug venturing across her skin with its soft doting feet.

A small hint of a smile graces her lips as she looks at the insect dancing across her fingertips. This is the black and red she loves; they are the colors of the silly ladybugs in thier red polka-dot dresses and black dance shoes, the colors of the one that now dances and flutters her wings across Brittany's pale arm. They are warm and soft. Inviting.

Underneath the tree, a stick snaps. It was a simple sound and in any other situation, well she would have thought nothing of it. But things have been tense around here ever since the angels started noticing Rachel's disappearance. Brittany immediately cups her hand over the ladybug, to keep it safe, and jumps up from her position on the tree branch.

Shifting around the thick trunk and the twisting branches, she looks to the ground and sees black and red.

Raven-black hair all pulled back into a tight ponytail and satin red clothes; charcoal eyes and ruby lips. Brittany bites her lower lip as the human girl prowls, an apple in her hands and its sweet juices dribbling down her chin as she unknowingly traps Brittany in her tree.

With a huff, this mysterious red and black girl collapses at the roots of the exact tree Brittany has scampered onto, leaving her trapped and looking down at the odd creature.

Unfortunately, in that exact moment that she is looking down, her wings brush against the prickly leaves that surround her and making her shiver from the odd scratching sensation and coincidentally catches the human's attention.

The girl's sharp gaze snaps up to the tree and her jaw falls, completely unhinged. Those dark charcoal eyes widen as they flicker quickly over Brittany, sitting in all her winged glory. In reality, there was no sense in trying to hide, the human girl had found her.

Those angry black eyes had zeroed onto her with a frightening amount of intensity, making hiding an indefinite impossibility; however, that didn't stop Brittany from trying.

The moment the human girl stood up (after stumbling slightly on a root and glaring petulantly at it) and looked up at Brittany, the winged angel quickly held her little ladybug closer and ducked behind the thick tree trunk for cover.

"Hey! You there, come down here" The girl demands but Brittany remains hidden behind her tree, refusing to move an inch.

"I'm not here, please go away," She cries at the human, just to solidify her lack of presence. The girl huffs and kicks the tree in a fit of anger, which must have hurt as the girl's face continued to twitched afterwards.

"I can see you," She says hotly and Brittany readjusts her wings so that they are hiding better behind the tree. There was a brisk sigh. "I still see you, just come down!" The girl is gritting her teeth now and she really looks angry since her face is all red; Brittany really doesn't want to come down now.

"No! You'll hurt me"

"Just come down here! I won't hurt you damn it!" the girl snaps and stomps her foot, and Brittany didn't know better, she doesn't want to upset anybody, angel or not and the girl did say she wasn't going to harm her…Who was she to judge the validity of someone she hasn't met? With a sigh, she jumps from the tree, her wings catching the air and slowing the fall so that she could land gracefully on her feet.

The ladybug in her hand crawls through her closed fingertips, trying to get a good look at the beast that wears her innocent colors and tarnishes them. Once Brittany was on the ground, she cowered until she was backed up against the tree; although, now that she was closer to the human, she couldn't help but notice some of the flaws in the Elder's descriptions of humans.

Firstly, there were no fangs extended past those ruby lips, and though her eyes were rather dark, they didn't look quite as soulless as the Elders described. Another thing is that humans aren't all that big, angels describe them as giant beasts and this girl is a few inches shorter than her.

She didn't know what to think of this, a part of her wanted to get over being scared of the girl and kiss her on the cheek like she would do to anyone; but everyone was making such a big deal about this girl not to mention all those stories.

She didn't know what to think, so naturally, she stopped thinking all together. Her focus is immediately drawn to the squirming ladybug in her hands and she makes a bridge from her hands so that the ladybug may walk freely among her limbs.

Though she was focused on her ladybug, Brittany couldn't help but notice that the girl really wasn't speaking to her despite her practically pulling Brittany from the trees to "talk".

She was just staring and shifting kind of awkwardly and almost sulking but mostly she just kept staring at her wings. Every time Brittany would move them, those black eyes would bulge as if trying to escape her eye sockets.

Finally, the silence got really boring and the ladybug no longer entertained her with its ticklish movements

"Do you wanna touch 'em?" She says finally, flapping her wings delightfully and watching as the odd wingless girl reacted. The girl opened her mouth as if to speak but all that came out was "Urng" so she snapped her mouth closed quickly and nodded fervently instead.

Giggling, Brittany leans down and kneels into the soft grass, her head moving down and almost touching her knee as her wings stretch out to their longest extent. The girl makes another strange sound and runs her hands over her wings, just inches from brushing the delicate feathers. Brittany has never been an overly patient angel, so after a long moment of the human almost touching her wings, she finally just extends her wings into the girl's hands.

The human jumps back as if bitten by some venomous creature. But with a deep calming breath, the human settles down enough to tentatively brush the feathers.

A pleasant tingling sensation shot down Brittany's spine before sparking hungrily across the rest of skin. She sighs softly as the human grows braver and strokes the broad part of her ivory wing with the soft, slightly sweaty part of her palm.

The human begins to ruffle her wings, running her fingers through the upper feathers and scratching the under feathers softly with the tip of her nail; Brittany's never had somebody pet her like a kitten before but she decides she likes it as the human hits a particularly sensitive part of her wings and she purrs softly at the sensation.

She's not one for purring, but she thought it was appropriate since the girl was petting her.

"Oh…" The girl breathes and retracts her hands, Brittany watches as the girl rubs her hands against the fabric of her red and white skirt nervously and feels a little pang in her chest. She hadn't meant to act weird, sighing, she sits back and watches as the human fidgets.

This is not what she imagined her first meeting with a human would be like…Well, she never really imagined meeting a human before today but since today she had always thought that it would end up being bloody.

But the girl looked more frightened of her than she was of the human, it was weird. She was about to stand up to leave or something, as the silence was heavy and kind of uncomfortable when a soft grumbling sound emitted from the human's stomach.

Immediately, Brittany jumps to the girl, causing the girl to gasp and throw her hands up in surprise, and puts her ear to the girl's stomach. Her fingers tighten around the soft fabric of the girl's shirt as she listens closely

"What was that?" She asks as another low grumbling sound reverberates through her ear.

"W-what? My stomach?" The girl asks, sounding somewhat hysterical as another growl rumbles after the girl's question. "Are you fucking with me? Is this a joke?" The girl curses.

"F-uck…that's an odd word…what does it mean?" She asks and moves her ear from the girl's stomach to look into the human's black eyes. "No! no wait, answer my first question!" She jitters, her eyes sparkling delightfully.

The girl wraps her tanned arms around her stomach and steps back, the nervousness finally draining from her expression as the girl is overcome with the ridiculous and unnecessary feeling of being ridiculed.

"It means I'm fucking starved, I haven't had anything but apples since I got here 'cause your people keep hiding from me" She mutters, her voice becoming brash even as her hands still occasionally fidget with her skirt.

"Oh…So you're hungry? Is that supposed to happen? That's weird!" She giggles and pokes the girl's stomach "Is that like a human thing or something?" She can honestly say she's never heard that loud grumbling from her stomach…but then again she's eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the same time every single day. And she wasn't human. Perhaps it was only something humans submitted to.

The girl is scowling when Brittany looks up in her face again, her cheeks are tinted pink and she grits her teeth.

Such an odd creature, she thinks and grabs the girl's wrist as she begins to drag her home. The girl leans back and fights her grasp but Brittany's bigger than the girl and happily tugs the girl's resistant form along. "Well come on then!" She says excitedly as the smell of cooking food fills her nose.

---

~~ X ~~

The wind whistles through the trees and taps against the thick glass of Finn's car as he waits for his girlfriend. His fingertips thrum gently against his thigh as he stares at the rain pelting down on the window shield.

The rain distorts his view of the world outside his warm car, blurring together the lines and colors into different schemes.

Sighing, he lets his head roll over to where his girlfriend stands.

Quinn is standing right outside the door, nodding solemnly with her lips stretched into a thin line.

She looks up at a tall, bulky man with fair blonde hair and partial lips that twist into hurtful sneers. He leans against the closed door and talks sternly to Quinn; the steel cords of his muscular arms twitch as he folds them across his chest, gently rising and falling with his every breath.

Finn shudders and looks back to his girlfriend, a much prettier and much less terrifying sight. That man is Russell Fabray, and is the scariest person that he has ever met, and that's saying something considering the fact that he is dating Quinn.

After a long minute, Quinn's head finally stops nodding and she looks up at her father with squinted eyes. Russell's lips twist into a grimace, a strong hand untwines itself from admonishing Quinn, comes up, and rakes gently through his thick, blonde hair.

His other hand lifts in the air like a king calling attention to his kingdom, even from here Finn can see Quinn tremble. With a heaving sigh, Russell flicks his raised hand and waves the girl away.

As he turns away, his piercing gaze slides over to Finn, his sour lips contort with barely concealed contempt. The boy within Finn trembles at the gaze and he fidgets under the haughty gaze of the strong-willed man, but something else wiggles free from his childish fear. It writhes in his chest and shoots a cool wave over his heated, flustered mind. It grows greedily in his chest.

Russell is a terrifying man, but a part of Finn wants to be like him. To stand strong and unmoving among a crowd without boyish bashfulness cracking his resolve. To be a leader. Straightening, Finn manages to clench his jaw the way he's seen Quinn do so many times before and meets the man's gaze.

But merely seconds after meeting his gaze, his boyish flush returns to his cheeks and he squirms under the man's unwavering gaze. With his bravery bashed and battered, he meekly drops his gaze and stares at the car door, slumping heavily with defeat.

The sound of the car door whipping open breaks Finn from his gaze as he glances to Quinn.

The cold air bursts through the warm, protective bubble of his heated car and whistles loudly before the surrounding sound of the door closing silences it. Quinn slips into the seat, shivering gently and rubbing her slick, flushed hands over the raised, wet skin of her arms.

"What was that about?" He murmurs gently, cranking up the heater as his car quietly roars back to life. Quinn groans and leans towards the window, her breath fogging up the glass as the car slowly pulls them away from the house.

"Nothing" She says grimly

"No really, I-I wanna know" Finn stutters, and straightens in his seat, attempting to be assertive. Quinn whips her head back, her hazel eyes glinting angrily at him, pink lips twist into a familiar scowl and Finn squirms under the gaze. "Sorry" he mutters and turns his attention back to the road. "I'm just concerned," he murmurs to himself as he keeps his eyes on the road.

Quinn sighs again; her hand flutters towards him momentarily and grasps his hand gently in an unspoken apology before slumping limply into her lap. Finn's lips quirk upwards towards his girlfriend but a tiny flicker of resentment burns within him.

Quinn never actually apologizes, at least, not that he can remember. It's always unspoken and implied, leaving him to grasp at the words that are never said.

"I suppose my Dad woke up this morning and decided that he was still angry with me for staying over at your house" Her eyes glide over and meet his through the mirror, he is quick to look away.

"But you told me that he was fine with it" He murmurs hurriedly as he throws all of his energy into driving. Quinn sighs and brushes a nimble finger over the small goose bumps covering her pale thigh peeking out from the Cheerios uniform.

"He was fine with me staying over as long as your mom was present at all times." Quinn says heatedly as she rolls her eyes and looks out of the window, the flow of conversation stops as she watches the rain pour down on the glass for a long moment. "I guess my Mom saw your mom at a salon or something. Apparently your mom leaving the house for a few hours puts my head on the chopping block," She says in a breathy whisper.

"But we didn't even do anything," He grumbles automatically, the same old line of disappointment slipping out without a thought. Quinn's eyes flash at him in warning and he sighs and drops his eyes back to the road, mumbling "Scary Quinn" quietly to himself.

"I just hate being babied," She breathes out, and turns her head away from him to stare out at the pouring rain, trying to hide her moment of vulnerability from him. "They treat me like I'm going to put the family to shame the moment they stop controlling everything"

He sighs and looks out blankly at the road. He's heard this all before.

"Well, why don't you just tell them that" He sighs, causing Quinn to laugh bitterly. Finn's lips just tighten, it can almost be scripted. Quinn's head tilts back into the head rest as her expression squints with mirth, but he knows better as her voice is too dry and thick to be real.

"Right, cause that'll work" Finn just shrugs and looks at Quinn, "Why don't you walk up to my father and try to tell him what to do," She says with finality, "Tell me how it goes" She says finally, glancing at her nails nonchalantly. With a sour frown, Finn turns away from her and towards to road; there was no way he would win that argument.

The two of them sit in silence for a long time; the only sound coming from the heavy pitter pat of the pelting rain and Finn's fingers thrumming anxiously against the steering wheel.

He watches through his peripheral vision as Quinn relaxes into her seat, her head lolling back into the head cushion, revealing the delicate definition of her neck. A soft sigh whispers past her pretty lips, making Finn shift uncomfortably in his seat.

Admittedly, he has never been good at being subtle, or multi-tasking, so looking through his peripheral vision meant blatantly staring and disregarding the road completely.

It is only at Quinn's screech that Finn's attention is jostled back onto the road, his jittery foot smashes on the break before even knowing what was happening.

A flash of a memory flickers underneath his eyelashes: A cracked windshield, his mother screaming, and a uniformed man rolling over the side of his hood. But before such a crash could occur in real life, the car groans from the sudden lack of speed and both Quinn and Finn lurch forward in their seats as the car's wheels scream into an abrupt stop.

The two of them sit in complete silence and stare in shock at Rachel, who stands in her own world a few feet from the car.

Her expression is far from pleasant, her eyes screwing shut in pain as her lips turn down into a sour grimace. Her hands clutch desperately at the fabric of her stomach, squirming anxiously as her face pinches again.

She teeters on unsteady ground as her dark eyelashes flutter open. They flicker and flutter as if brought to life, revealing little flashes of the whites of Rachel's eyes.

Quinn's breath comes out ragged as they watch. Finn turns to her with furrowed brows and purses his lips as he attempts to process what is happening. So naturally, he turns to Quinn for answers.

Quinn is sitting painfully straight; her shoulders are tense while a hand grabs the leather seat beneath her desperately.

Another hand is grasping the car door ferociously, as if at any moment she was going to dash outside to check if Rachel was okay. He almost expected her to, but she doesn't. Her grip just grows tighter and tighter until her knuckles become as white as bone from the force of it.

Even as Rachel's chocolate, bleary eyes finally whirl back into view Quinn looks as if she is seconds from bolting from her seat.

Finn purses his lips and shies away from Quinn, he's seen girls who look just like that in movies, usually moments later the girls start hyperventilating and screaming.

He shudders and turns back to the road; Quinn doesn't freak out, like, ever. She can be a multitude of things at the same time, like a girl on the swings. She'll go from angry to sad, then to happy and occasionally affectionate and then swings back in a sweeping force to murderous. She's really good at that, Quinn can swing all day, but she doesn't freak out, she'll never freak out no matter what he throws at her.

He purses his lips and shifts away from her. Except for now, apparently.

Rachel's gaze finally finds the car that had almost run her over and an old, delirious grin curls at the edges of her lips.

A shaky hand comes up to wave at him and Quinn's jaw just clenches tightly in response.

Finn shakes his head and chuckles at the girl's strange antics as he puts the car back into drive.

"What are you doing?" Quinn murmurs through pale, bloodless lips and he turns to stare at his girlfriend blankly.

Quinn's grip has loosened completely, leaving her hands looking limp and tired in her lap as they attempt to flush back with color. Though her cheeks are still pale, her expression seems to have momentarily revived itself in the image of the Quinn Fabray he knows well.

"Um...Driving to school?" He asks hesitantly, at times like these Quinn's already short fuse sparks a lot more quickly than usual.

"Yes and do you remember the girl you almost ran over practically dying in the street a moment ago?" Quinn murmurs sweetly, her tone dripping slowly like maple syrup. Finn silently bristles at the tone, whenever Quinn gets angry she tends to speak to him like a child.

Huffing he glances to the sidewalk where Rachel is now walking steadily through the pouring rain; she didn't look like she was dying, sure she looked a bit sick a minute ago but ago but she was walking fine now.

He raps his hand against the window in an attempt to gesture to the perfectly fit girl walking to school.

"She's fine Quinn," He says automatically, and Quinn's gaze follows his hand to where Rachel walks.

The girl, unbeknownst of anyone's gaze, splashes childishly through the puddles and grins wildly as the water clings to her skin and clothes.

Finn grins widely when Quinn doesn't say anything after that and silently whoops in victory at having avoided another bitter and pointless argument.

Quinn settles into the seat and tips her head towards the window where the small brunette plays innocently in her field of view.

"Rachel is still wearing my clothes," Quinn states softly, catching Finn off guard in comparison to the angry glint to her voice merely moments ago.

Finn glances out of his mirror and sees Rachel's reflected image showing a bright albeit pained smile, glancing down he notices the familiar skirt and shirt he had given her on Friday.

His head began to twist and throb with theories that could explain why she would still be wearing the same clothes, but all the thoughts began to muddle his mind with painful, exerting explanations. And so, he decided that it would be easiest to simply not think about the possibly sad explanations as to why Rachel is still wearing the same outfit and shrugs it off completely, leaving his mind safe once again from troublesome thought.

"Huh" He grunts non-commitedly and shifts his gaze back to the road; out of sight out of mind.

Quinn moves her head at the sound and fights to regain his attention; although he does his best to avoid eye contact, eventually Quinn wins and he submits to her. With a bowed head, he glances into her eyes and sees unusually soft, compassionate eyes glimmering where cold, hardened hazel orbs of eyes once lay.

With a sigh, he squirms and looks back over to Rachel. "What do you want me to do about it?" He whines, making Quinn huff and roll her eyes.

She reaches into her Cheerios pocket, grabs a silky, golden purse, and begins to rifle through the small pockets. A small smile curves at the edges of her lips as she pulls out six crisp 20-dollar bills and pushes it towards him.

Finn recoils from the stranger sitting in front of him as his eyebrows recede into his hairline. He's seen mood swings before but he's never known any this bad before; first she was angry, and then she was an anxious stranger, then back to angry, to somewhat calm, and now to this giving stranger with cheery smiles and gleaming eyes.

He blinks and rubs his eyes as if to wake him from some sort of dream, Quinn has never really been in the "giving" mood, especially for people on the blacklist; and he has never seen her like this, it was as if a halo were gleaming over her head.

At Finn's ongoing silence, Quinn quirks an eyebrow and cocks her head all the while urging the money towards him

"You don't have to worry, this is nothing but petty change, my parent's won't even notice the difference," She says softly.

It may have been the uncharacteristic voice, or Quinn's overall strange personality change, or maybe even a bit of Quinn's jolly mood rubbing at his need for competition. But whatever the reason is, he finds himself jerking his head away snobbily and telling her he didn't need her petty change.

"I have money!" He practically shouts, and shoves his hands into his pockets, searching for his wallet. He slips out the small black object as his lips form a hard and defined line, quickly snapping it open.

His expression instantly droops as he finds a crumpled up five dollar bill in the corner of his wallet, money that had meant to be his lunch money. A bit of his pride dies and falls painfully to his feet as his eyes harden considerably, and before he knows it Quinn has slipped her clean pile of money into his open hands.

With a groan, he inwardly growls at Quinn's sudden kindness and takes the money. With warm, flushed cheeks, he feels like nothing but a silly little boy beside Quinn.

He doesn't like it when Quinn is the good guy...girl. They were like the good cop bad cop of High school. She was irrationally angry most of the time and scared everybody into obeying while he smiles and wins over people's hearts.

That's just the way things worked, and they worked pretty damn well, but now Quinn is acting like…this…all sweet smiles and throwing money at blacklisters.

He can't take it, "why are you acting like this? You are the one who put her on the blacklist and now you are offering to buy her clothes…and…and you're worried about her. If I didn't know better I would say you actually cared about the girl" He grumbles hotly and fidgets. "I mean…what are people going to think knowing that the head Cheerio sympathized with someone" He mumbles, looking away innocently as Quinn's jaw clicks at the mention of her risked popularity.

She tenses up, her jaw clenches as a raised, familiar vein pulsates from the delicate skin of her forehead. Those soft, gentle orbs freeze in front of him as she crosses her arms in front of her chest. S

he looks away with a harsh huff and cold, pale cheeks; and suddenly, the girl he knows so well is back.

The world spins back into order as the balance is once again found; the imaginary halo gleaming above Quinn's head slips, clatters onto her lap, and shatters beside the satin red of her Cheerios uniform.

"I don't care, it's just that my clothes have been marinating on that freak for the entire weekend and I would very much like to wear them again without having to do much more than boil them." She grits out through clenched teeth as her chin jerks up snobbily; a familiar flash of anger flickers in the girl's eyes as she attempts to regain her dignity.

And with that, they easily slip back into their black and white characters of Good and Evil. He pockets the money and feels his heart sputter at the hope of seeing the girl's bright grin when he shows up with a pile of new clothes for her.

Within minutes, they pull into the school parking lot and Quinn jumps out with her usual haughtiness and anger, leaving a smiling Finn alone in the car to be the hero and buy new clothes.

---

~~ X ~~

Puck swings his arm over the open trashcan and eyes the miserable line of geeks standing in front of him. Inwardly, he groans.

Every Monday morning, he gets the job of throwing kids into the dumpster, assigned personally by Quinn Fabray. Honestly, he doesn't like the dirty job; sure the squeaky pleas the blacklisters beg to him are fun to laugh at and every once and a while somebody pees their pants…but in the end, there are so many things he'd rather be doing than throwing gawky blacklisters into garbage cans.

Important things like leering at the smoking hot babes roaming around his territory.

Speaking of which…

"Hey babe," He flirts to a nameless blonde girl with barely-there shorts and a tank top. She glances over to him with a coquettish smile while he winks, but it only takes a moment for the girl to gag and run away from him, covering her nose.

The smell sucks too…Those trashcans smell like a deadly mixture of mold and carcasses.

But it's not like he can do anything about it, once Quinn assigns something, you better stick to it or else you wanna start getting thrown into the dumpsters yourself.

Spitting out a mouthful of dip, he turns to the first geek in line, a gangly boy with acne and glasses, and smirks.

You never want to be first in line for the dumpster throws, one kid almost got suffocated underneath the smell and five other kids on top of him.

Grunting, he walks over and heaves the kid over his shoulder like a bag of trash, spinning around, he throws the kid into the garbage and smirks again at the faint Oomph!

He manages to cut the line by ten geeks all while grumbling about having to come to school early for this when the sound of a car door slamming shut catches his attention.

Quinn Fabray practically glides out of Finn's car in her usual dashing grace of anger and irritation and looks around as if expecting someone to jump out and cover her from the rain with an umbrella.

Puck smiles faintly to himself as he flings another blacklisted into the trash. Who is he kidding? He's got the hots for this girl...Well, he's got the hots for everybody, but there is something about Quinn that just touches him somewhere above the waist for once.

Honestly, he doesn't know how this happened, sure, Quinn's hot but almost every girl is hot to the Puckzilla so that doesn't explain anything. She's got no place in his "heart", he is the school's roughhouse bad boy; he sleeps around with every girl he can find, and that includes Quinn's best friend Santana, who is almost as slutty and dogged as he is.

But Quinn is Miss goody two shoes, she looks at herself like she is the princess of this bankrupt school, and she treats it as such. She glides around campus with such prestigious snobbiness and scorn that a single glance from her should have been able to ward him away forever.

Apparently, that was not the case as he is now shooting all sorts of longing glances her way.

He's got no chance with the girl, not only does she have his dopey best friend wrapped around her pinkie finger, but she is Queen of the Celibacy club and everything that is Holy. It is absolutely hopeless; she wouldn't let him near her virginal white panties even if he tried.

Another few nerds, twerps, and other lame names for the blacklisters get dumped before he looks up again. Quinn is standing alone underneath the building with a grim scowl on her lips.

Grunting, he throws the last loser into the trash and rubs his hands together, letting the downpour of rain-wash them clean. He shrugs his damp jacket over himself and walks a bit closer to where Quinn stands and hides from the rain.

The girl's got that distant look on her face that she gets whenever she's alone, it usually makes her frown and suddenly Puck's wishing he knew where Santana was other than for just a quickie.

Puck isn't stupid; sure his grades suck, but so does school, and yeah maybe he isn't good with triangles and squares or memorizing facts about people who have no connection to him or his life in any way…but he's got street smarts, and that is what matters to him.

You give him a few bucks and he'll know how to spend it; if he's lost in the middle of Lima, he's the first guy to navigate the closest stripper bar, and if you give him a girl, he'll know everything about her, and by the end of the week, he would've seen everything on her.

That's the kind of knowledge that is important to Puck, and so it's suffice to say that he's taken it upon himself to know Quinn very well…Despite the shameful fact that he's failed to see the girl in his lair, he's been successful in learning everything about her, in a cool, non-creepy way.

Quinn's got her princess complex and raging bitch attitude, but like he's said before, he's not dumb enough to think that bitchiness was all Quinn had to her. He knows that whenever she's alone, her frosty eyes glaze over in an incomprehensible misery that can even sting his lady lustful heart.

Not only that, but she's got a secret soft spot for music, especially Glee club; Santana's not the only person to have snuck up on the girl as she creeps into the auditorium.

She'd never admit to it, but she likes to read and loves the warmth of a sunny day.

He's caught her at the park over the summer, ear buds in her ears and a smile gracing her lips as she flips through whatever book she's found. Not that he'd ever tell anybody about what he's discovered, what would people think knowing that Quinn Fabray finds something pleasurable in life? The horror…

The sight of a petite brunette striding towards Quinn breaks his dream-like state and he smirks and leans against the wall.

This should be good. He felt like he was in some Roman cathedral (fine, he listened to that part in history; unnecessary violence was cool). Every one leaned in towards Quinn-the-princess-warrior as the clueless victim-to-be-slain wandered closer.

Just the sight of the girl screamed weakness, Quinn would eat her up and not break a sweat, the girl walked as if she were a puppet and her puppeteer was extremely drunk.

She moved in jerky movements and stumbled often, but made up for it with persistence as she always got up again. There were deep bags underneath her eyes and bruises covering her legs (probably from falling so often) and a tight smile that looked more like a grimace on her lips.

And it wasn't just the rain disturbing his vision because as the girl got closer to Quinn, she got out of the rain and looked even more fragile still.

But the girl's weak composure didn't do the same effect to Quinn that he would have thought; she seemed to move back with every stumbled step the girl would take towards her.

She looked partly…scared? Was it possible? Quinn threw a furious glare at the brunette and took a step back but the girl was oblivious and only grinned wider as she advanced forward.

People grew even more interested as their princess-warrior faltered horribly in the sight of such a weak girl. But as the girl finally reached Quinn, everything changed; Quinn stopped running and stood frozen while Rachel blabbered insistently about friendship or something like that.

Puck cringes at the stern look Quinn gives her; what is wrong with this girl? Does she even know the rules?

He winces when Rachel's hand lands on Quinn's bare arm and fully expects Quinn to slap her, he almost looks away but he figured that it wouldn't be manly to look away from a catfight.

What happens instead shocks him completely, and his jaw hangs unceremonially on the ground as Quinn's bitchy façade lessens even slightly. Those hazel eyes soften like they tend to do whenever she thinks she's alone and the grim lines of aggravation turn up gently into neutrality.

People buzz around the two girls with interest and gasp collectively at the new advance in their little bloodthirsty cathedral game.

A little shoot of bitterness makes its way into Puck as he watches, it took him an entire day of all his tricks to get Quinn to be neutral towards him, and even then, he risked being thrown into his own dumpster.

The two of them stand like that for a long while, the brunette whispering every so often to the blonde while Quinn almost looks like she wants to snuggle closer.

But eventually, like most moments with Quinn do, the peaceful minute ends quickly and painfully because then Quinn's eyes flicker to the open area around her, to her wide-eyed subjects that stare at her with hungry curiosity.

And before anyone could blink, Quinn's hard lines return to her face and her hand rises into the air; suddenly, every one knows she's done playing.

She snaps her fingers and just like that, everything jostles back into motion. Jocks jump into action like the girl's personal flying monkeys and grab the brunette. All of them laugh and jab at her as they push the startled girl around, and in a large swing, she is quickly dispensed into the dumpster.

And that was that.

The crowd disperses with Quinn's collected glare scaring them all away like a mental whip, lashing at everyone until the crowd turns into a swarm of animals.

Puck sighs and leans back, waiting for the approaching blonde. He couldn't actually call the girl out, but he had his ways. When she walked towards him, he quirked an eyebrow and smirked…Sure, his "ways" weren't very assertive with words, but it always worked at getting Quinn's attention anyway.

She sighs and quirks an eyebrow right back at him,

"What do you want Puck?" She drawls slowly and looks towards the crowd nonchalantly.

While doing his inward fist pump, he smirks more and shrugs

"I don't know Blondie, what did I just see there?"

Another sigh

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Rachel just walked up to me and caught me by surprise, whatever, freak" She had started off strong, but by the end she was half grumbling and staring at her shoes. Puck couldn't be more delighted,

"Oh! So it's Rachel! I thought blacklisters weren't to be called by their first names"

He has got her there. He chuckles on the inside but keeps his expression as stoic as possible as to not awake sleeping bitch within this grumbling girl. She scoffs but a fleeting moment of panic crossed her expression as he had a point.

"Whatever, she's just a freak! I don't even know her last name. She probably doesn't even go here. Sh-she's still wearing my clothes an-" She stops, catching herself as Puck's eyebrow reaches his hairline.

Quinn huffs and bites her lip as she had completely lost her composure. With a huff, she clamps her jaw shut and glares at Puck, her eyes swirling with contempt and the promise of revenge.

Oops, game over.

Rolling his eyes, he hastily changes the subject.

"Do you know where Santana is?"

For some odd reason, the two girls had gotten along in an odd way. It's not like they had anything in common, Santana had loose panties and sadistic tendencies while Quinn probably wore a chastity belt and she had no need to be sadistic, she just controlled people.

But the two of them stuck together, bonded through some secret understanding, and the two of them seemed to like it like that.

Quinn got a bitchy assistant while Santana got to be on the top, fueling her bitchy desires through the weak scum at the school. And if Santana was good at anything, it was at making people cry, and for keeping Quinn's destructive personality at bay.

But the girl was missing, and that meant trouble for the kids who couldn't pull their popular weight. He had called the Latina for a few booty calls and then called with true concern but only received a shrugged off response from the girl's mother.

He supposed the woman had thought that he was stupid enough to fall for "she's at a friends house" the entire weekend and without her phone. Nobody went anywhere without their phones.

When Quinn's eyes narrow and she bites her lower lip, he knows that she had gotten the same response. She looked upset, not in a way that a normal person would express worry or concern; no, Quinn was too stubborn for that.

It was in the things she didn't express; his personal favorite was her eyes. Those chestnut eyes became hollow as if all the emotion was scooped out of them, leaving nothing but the empty color.

Pink lips pursed into a straight line and she straightened, her shoulders rolling gently as if preparing for battle. It was almost funny; she was so scared of showing her emotions that he could see right through her.

And then, just like that, Quinn pulls her favorite card of changing the subject. She was famous for things like that, once things got too personal for her, she expected others to change the subject for her or she did it.

And it worked every time, if she was lucky, the subject of Santana being missing would be swept under the rug like a true Fabray.

Leaning in closer, the girl pulls on a mask of smiles; Puck doesn't believe it for a second, but he plays his part of the weak-minded boy who's easily distracted. Besides, if he does this enough there was a chance that he may get lucky.

A small chance yes, but he was willing to do almost anything.

"Hey can you do something for me?" She murmurs lowly, lifting her voice into a question, as if he actually had a choice in this matter. He almost laughs.

"Finally take your V-card?" He responds in the same low voice, making her recoil with disgust. He takes victory in the fact that she didn't hit him and run away like the first time he suggested it, progress.

"Not a chance," She hums, her eyes sparkling with pure delight far beneath the mask of contempt as she once again rejects him. She, like most girls, is secretly sadistic. "I want you to watch Rachel, check her out you know?" Her voice dips down with the seriousness of the matter and her face hardens as if what she was saying was absolutely crucial to the survival of the High School body.

"Hmm...I don't want to be your garbage man anymore" He bargains and Quinn quirks an eyebrow, crossing her arms she smiles.

"But such a strong and capable man like you should love showing off his strength, I bet girls are crawling all over you" She drawls but he doesn't fall for her this time, words like that are meant to trick guys like Finn, not him.

"Girls don't dig the stench so much, I've managed fairly well but it's pretty tiring working with pure charm" He says with a shrug and a wink that makes her twitch.

Breathing slowly, she finally nods and waves her hand as if magically erasing his name off the assignment list.

He smirks as she rolls her eyes. "Then yes, I will check her out for you" He breaths out and winks, revealing all of his dirty little thoughts to her.

Smirking inwardly, he spins around as Quinn's expression twists with rage and runs away before she can destroy him.

Shoveling past the still scrambling herd of people he slowly shoves his way towards the dumpster can.

Looking into the grimy can, he finds the brunette lying in a tragic heap by the peeled bananas and Jew-fro. Her chocolate eyes stare out in confusion at the sprinkling sky as the slimy boy beneath her runs his clammy hands over her bare shoulder and whispers into her ear.

The girl looks appalled and disgusted but she still nods and tries to listen to him. But when the boy smells her hair and says that he wants to ravage her sexually, Rachel's expression twists into a compilation of horror, disgust, and more confusion. Puck takes this as his chance to pull her out.

Putting his hands on the dumpster, he props himself up and grabs the girl. With one quick pull, he practically throws her from the garbage. When a few other blacklisters begin to groan and throw their hands up into the air like zombies rising from the ground, he glares at them. "Don't even think about it, unless you want to be thrown into the portables next time"

The zombie hands quickly fall back to their dirty, trash covered ground.

Once she is out, she holds her stomach and looks as if she were seconds away from heaving her guts out, Puck steps back just in case.
"That kid made me feel rather unpleasant!" She whines and frowns at her feet that turn inward childishly.

He chuckles and slaps her on the back which coincidentally slammed her back into the dumpster. But when her gaze flashes to him, he stops laughing and stares at her confused expression, stone cold with seriousness.

Seriously? It's called disgust and it isn't all that uncommon...What is up with this girl? She's probably some homeschooled kid, sheltered beyond belief.

Coughing into his hand, he yanks her up and pulls her away from the crowd gathering around. He drags her until they reach the sticky warmth of the girl's locker rooms.

There are no teachers hanging around so he won't get in trouble for peeking; unfortunately that also means that there are no girls to peek on. He sighs heavily and sits the girl down on the bench; her head whips around wildly as if she'd never seen a locker room before in her life.

With another sigh, he lets himself get into character of interrogator; he lazily leaned against the lockers and crossed his arms. With the eyes of a true investigator, Puck checks her out. The girl was attractive.

Her hair, although still damp and a little ruffled, shimmered in the artificial light, casting dark shadows into the hollows of her cheekbones. Her dark brown eyes look up at him through the thick cover of her eyelashes – and although they looked purely innocent – with the flush of her cheeks, it gave her a sexy flustered look. It definitely appealed to him.

Also, there was something attractive with her defined jaw line and thicker yet delicate shoulders, and she had a slightly larger nose that sent off a wonderfully sexy Jewish vibe to him. A part of him considered forgetting about this stupid "interrogation" act and hitting on the girl.

He's sure he could have this girl by the end of the week; it would be a lot easier than trying to woo Quinn like he's been doing for the past year or so. But damn it he gave Quinn his word and he's wanted the girl since Freshman year and that's the longest crush type feelings he's held for someone in his entire life.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

"So, what's your name?" He starts it off easy and gives her a friendly smile; he goes about this kind of like the way his dad taught him how to hunt.

Creep up on your prey slowly; make it so they become comfortable with your presence and then Bam! You've got dinner.

It's one of the only salvageable tips his father's ever thought to give him, but it has proven to be helpful.

"Rachel!" She chirps, flashing off a blinding smile; Puck waits for a moment with wide eyes before coughing into his hand again

"Um...Last name?" He asks unsurely and her eyes flash with fear. Shit. He flashes his own charming smile and tries to come off nonchalant though he's never been much of an actor.

Rachel looks as if she's a caged animal; her chocolate eyes glance to him and to the door and then wildly look around the room before landing onto the only escape once again.

After a moment, she finally settles down and bites her lip, thinking. He figures the girl is determining if he's a creeper of sorts and wants to hand out personal information, but seriously, it's only a last name.

Eventually, the girl seems to have made a decision because she beams and straightens.

"Berry! My name is Rachel Berry" She grins happily before shrinking slightly, as if self-conscious of her own last name; she looks as if she wants to ask him if she gave the right answer. He just grins and tries to move onto an easier subject...an easier subject than names... Shit.

"Okay Rachel Berry" Another happy grin "You just moved here right? Where from?"

Her eyes slide around and she tenses up a bit but less than before, pearly white teeth tease with her lower lip while she analyzes her next answer.
"Far away..." She finally replies with uncertainly.

Moving on...

"Okay...Um...What classes are you taking?" He asks and she looks horribly guilty

"What classes are you taking?" She asks, her voice cracking as she obviously tries to squirm herself out from the focus of the conversation.

With a sigh, he decides to move on once again onto even more easily answerable questions to which she manages to dance around the subject with frustratingly cryptic answers.

Finally, after what seems like hours of going nowhere, he throws up his hands and growls while her focus is directed towards the showers she just noticed. "I didn't know there were showers here!" She says delightfully and sighs as if this little fact has answered all of her hopes and desires.

Forget this, he's going to shoot his prey, his dad was an idiot, he's been doing this for way too long and he might actually know less about the girl than when he began.

"Look here Rachel Berry, I don't know what is going on here but you better tell me because I have connections with some very powerful people," Yeah, only Quinn Fabray and she's already done her worse but Rachel doesn't know that "And they can throw you out of here with a simple snap of my fingers" He lifts his fingers and widens his eyes to glare at the girl who looks about seconds away from wetting herself.

He honestly has no idea what he just said and anybody with nothing to hide would have laughed at his empty threat and walked out of the door but Rachel is shaking like a leaf, and with her wide eyes watering and her lips quivering, she whimpers.

"O-okay! I don't go to this school! Pl-please don't tell anybody, I just wanted to l-learn and- and I only know two people since I moved here and that is Finn and Quinn and one of them has yet to fully admit herself as my friend." She blubbers, tears stream down her face while she rubs at her eyes furiously. "Please, please, please" She begs into her hands and it makes Puck's stomach twist. "I just got here!" She whines in a high-pitched voice that reminds him of a child, her shoulders are slouched and her feet turn inward innocently. Puck sighs; she's just a little girl.

He doesn't know of any person who would actually go to this school willingly, let alone sneak into school when she wasn't supposed to. He put the girl under a runaway homeschooler and decided to stop the questioning.

He sits next to the crying girl and wraps an arm around her; it astounds him how warm she is despite the weather. Heat radiates from her thin frame and thrums into his arm as he rubs comforting circles her shoulders.

"There, there" He murmurs, feeling incredibly awkward for the first time since his epic birth; Rachel sighs and places her head into his shoulder, she really was incredibly small. After a few moments of sniffles, she lets out a breathy giggle.

"You know, I've never cried before...moving...here but now that I'm here it seems like the only thing I can do" She murmurs, rubbing her eyes.
"Well then, you have lived an incredibly sheltered life" He deadpans, looking desperately for something to drag them out of this touching moment. She giggles again and sighs

"Have you ever cried?" She asks softly, and he bites the inside of his cheek at her lack of a filter, normal people don't tend to ask people questions like that. Rachel wriggles from his grasp, clamoring away from him enough so that she could look into his eyes.

Her wide, chocolate eyes are red brimmed and glazed but full of that irrational hopefulness that he can't help but answer her.

"Officially? No, I'm far too manly for that" He says and narrows his eyes at the girl's powerful laugh but he grasps onto the fact that the girl was laughing now instead of crying and blubbering. "Look, I'm going to help you" She shoots up and looks at him seriously.

"Really?" She asks, rubbing her eyes

"Yeah, but don't you dare tell anybody 'cause I still know powerful people" He warns and she nods her head furiously

"You can trust me Noah Puckerman" He groans at the use of his full name, he doesn't know how she got his full name but damn it he's going to kill whoever gave it to her. He hated the name Noah, Puck was so much better.

"Okay, so you happened to have stumbled onto one of the most bankrupt school in Ohio and the cheapest Principal in the world. Mr. Figgins has laid off most of the new teachers and only left the old and uncaring teachers that have met their 10-year. So, I'll give you a list of the teachers who won't notice if you slip into one of their classes. Honestly, this is the least supervised school in the world; people slip off campus and bring thier friends from different schools so you have nothing to worry about, okay?" Rachel just nods vigorously.

"And befriending Quinn Fabray?"

With a chuckle, he shakes his head

"Look, nobody is truly friends with Quinn. It's a waste of your time, trust me, you will be better off keeping your head down and joining a club to try to get yourself off the blacklist. Forget Quinn." He says but Rachel just frowns, her lower lip trembling and her eyes begin to water. "Fine! I will do whatever I can" He yelps in an attempt to keep her tears at bay and her face immediately splits in two with the brightest grin he's ever seen. "Just so you know, this is going to be the end of you," he grumbles but Rachel is beyond paying attention to his warning.

With another giggle, she throws her arms around him, places a chaste kiss on his cheek, and then jumps back in an excited jumble of clapping and squealing. "Alright, don't get all affectionate with me unless you wanna go somewhere with it" He looks the girl up and down and rubs the back of his neck with a sigh. "Okay, and ditch the 'far away' deal; people aren't going to be satisfied until they know where your from."

"W-what should I say?"

"You seriously can't tell the truth? What? Are you some assassin freak running from the cops?" He raises an eyebrow, that would be interesting to bring back to Quinn. Rachel's eyes widen at the word 'assassin' and shakes her head wildly, her brown ringlets are thrown around as she denies the accusation violently.

"Alright calm down before you take your head off…Just say you're from New York or shit and you had to move here 'cause shit was expensive or something. I don't know! I can't make this shit up" He grumbles and Rachel shrinks back, muttering an apology with those wide, chocolate eyes. This girl was weird, like seriously sheltered, but he supposes that's not Rachel's fault.

So, with a sigh, he pinches the bridge of his nose and awkwardly slaps the girl on the back. "Don't worry about it Rach, things are gonna be alright…" He manages to comfort her enough and soon that wild, beaming grin is back on her lips and her eyes are twinkling at the nickname.

With that, he smirked and turned to leave; he still couldn't imagine why the girl wanted to be a part of this school, he would do anything not to be registered into some school.

The moment he gets out of the locker rooms, he practically topples into Finn.

They both grumble and stare each other down; Finn's got a bundle of girl's clothes in his hands and has a strange blush tinting his cheeks.

Puck tries not to feel guilty that he has spent the majority of the day trying to get on Quinn's good side and in consequence, in her bed.

They both stand in awkward silence, both boys shuffling around;

"Ya know where Quinn is?" Puck mumbles, finally breaking the silence.

"Haven't seen her since this morning….Have you seen Rachel?" The lanky boy says awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. Puck grunts and points behind him before lurking away from the tense boy as they both silently admit to not being completely honest men in their intentions.

But nothing is said outwardly and as long as there are no words thrown into the mix, they can both go along in ignoring it. And that's exactly what they do, it's just the way things work around here.

---

~~ X ~~

Angels aren't very good at hiding.

This is one of the conclusions Santana has come up with since she's been here. The blonde had dragged her to what appeared to be an odd vacant campsite. A small fire burned and crackled in the middle as a steady coil of gray smoke billowed to the vast blue sky.

Throughout this odd campsite, large tarps were strewn about and overlapped into even larger platforms, all centered around the small crackling fire. As the girl abandoned Santana in the middle of one of these tarps, she skipped through the thin trees to gather and collect food.

Santana hesitantly sits down, her head snapping rapidly around her to keep her eyes on the obviously still present creatures, and as she did so, she had to think again that these people were simply horrible at hiding.

Popping out from behind trees, branches, and small wooden structures, were the curious and frightened eyes of the angels. Her paranoia was roaring with its full potential as there were literally people hiding in the trees that could potentially decide to sweep down and murder her at any moment. One blonde angel was fine company and kept Santana's scathing curiosity from killing her, but a whole clan of possibly blood thirsty, winged beasts hiding in the trees was too much for her too handle.

But then the girl came back with steaming, clay bowls of soup and two loafs of crusty bread in her hands and waved enthusiastically to the creatures in the trees.

The other angels whispered and peeked their curious heads through the leaves and a few hesitantly waved back before hiding deeper in the trees upon the sight of the human turning to stare at them. However, even as they hid, their large wings kept them from disappearing from sight.

The blonde sighed and looked down from the trees, mumbling something under her breath as she brought the clay bowl to her mouth. With a long slurp and a satisfying sigh, she licks her lips and smiles encouragingly at Santana, who seems a little lost on the instructions of how to eat.

Or just terrified because there were angels staring at her from every corner of her eyesight.

The blonde angel squeaks softly as the feather light feet of the ladybug crawls from underneath her dress and onto the skin of her pale arm.

With a light giggle, the blonde rips a piece of bread and hands it to the little insect. Santana sighs and glares at the trees, just waiting for the massacre to begin.

"I dunno what you're waiting for but they're not gonna join us" The girl mumbles between bites of bread "They have you pegged down as another violent human but I dunno about that yet" She says, her blue eyes sparkling as she stares at Santana and glugging down the rest of her soup. "So you might as well eat or else you'll scare them even worse with all that grumbling and growling coming from your tummy" She giggles and beams at the ladybug walking around the ignored bread crumb on her arm.

Santana frowns and she looks back from the trees and into the muddy soup. It was a questionable substance, filled with a slushy brown liquid with some unrecognizable vegetables bobbing up and down in it.

But just the sight of it made Santana's stomach lurch with undeniable hunger. With a heavy sigh, Santana munched on the warm bread as she grumbled angrily, eyeing the suspicious angels behind the trees.

Her attention, however, is snapped back in order after the food successfully plops heavily into her stomach, making her groan with satisfaction. With a ravenous hunger, Santana shoveles loafs of bread into her mouth as she simultaneously downs her soup.

Loud, animalistic growls of approval were heard between the short gaps of time between munching ferociously on food and shoveling it in. It was definitely a sight to behold, catching others by interest while pushing many others into the trees to cower in fear.

Even the blonde beside Santana shivered, her wide blue eyes watching the human with rapt curious attention.

Eventually the stock of food diminished, leaving Santana to stare down at the emptiness in front of her with a wistful expression.

The human released a soft sigh before wiping her wet mouth with the back of her hand, bringing her attention back at the intrigued blonde beside her.

"So, what you're saying is that these creatures – your friends – think that I'm going to kill them?" Santana questioned, running her tongue along her teeth to remove the thick glaze of vegetable soup.

The blonde could only nod, her own thoughts straying on whether or not the human would in fact murder them all. The human frowns, her eyebrows furrowing into an expression unlike any of the others the angel has witnessed on her face. "What makes them think that? I'm not the one with the freakish wings and shit." Santana grumbles as she picked at the grass, tearing it from the soft mud with a satisfactory tug.

Unbeknownst to her, the blonde stares sadly as the grass is torn up from the ground and thrown to the side, uprooted and dead. "Besides, it was your friend who practically drowned me" She continues to grumble. At that, the angel perks up and beams at Santana.

"My friend? Do you mean Rachel? Oh! Is she alright?" The girl jabbers excitedly, completely ignoring everything around the word "your friend".

"Oh! You mean the dwarf who tried to drown me? Oh she's perfectly fine" Santana says with her usual snarky attitude that must have been completely lost on the blonde as she simply turns back to the trees with a beaming smile

"The human tells me that our sister angel is safe!" She yells, making the angels hiding in the trees peek their heads out from behind the leaves. They grin and a few manage a small squeak of happiness before Santana looks back at them and scares them back into their trees.

"Are you going to keep ignoring the fact that your friend tried to drown me?" She bites out bitterly, feeling a little irritated and left out. The angel looks back to her with the happiest smile Santana's ever seen and giggles, her bubblegum pink tongue sticking out between her blindingly white teeth for a moment.

"My Rachel would never do that so it must have been the Looking Glass, it kind of sucks" She says, giggling again, and cocking her head to the side "At least, that's what Rachel tells me"

Santana just blinks, bewildered into silence.

"Wh-what's the Looking Glass?" She asks, her mouth suddenly dry at the thought of finally sating her curiosity. At the question, the trees all shudder as wings flutter and thrash through the leaves.

The blonde looks sadly at the trees and turns back to her, a little flitter of knowledge hiding behind those blue eyes. She shrugs and shakes her head; Santana huffs "Fine! Then at least answer me this…What are you?" The disruption in the trees grows stronger but the blonde doesn't turn to them like she had before.

"I suppose you could call us angels, if you need a label for us"

"So…am I dead then? Is this heaven?" Santana asks, looking around wildly. She wouldn't have been so starving or ignored if she was in heaven. Admittedly, the first thing that crosses her mind is: Damnit! Quinn and her stupid Christian shit was right

The girl just cocks her head to the side and looks at her, a smile tugging at the edge of her lip as she blatantly stares.

"You're kinda weird aren't you?" She finally says, with a small giggle. Santana sits up straight at the accusation and blinks. No, she isn't weird at all! She's popular and sexy; people would kill to be her. She opens her mouth to spit out a quick retort, but the girl has disappeared.

Blinking again, Santana looks around wildly for the blonde angel and jumps when she finds the girl right behind her.

"Holy Shit!" She scrambles up as the girl giggles; the angel taps her on the shoulder with a maniacal grin.

"You're it!" She cries and jumps away in a playful trot. Santana just watches with wide eyes.

What. The. Fuck. She just asked if she was dead in a seriously deep way and the girl called her weird and broke a fuse. What? Did she want to…play? What the fuck? Shit…She really is dead…That explains it, this girl's got a bad problem with bringing bad news to peo-

"You're it!" The girl taps her again and jumps away into a full sprint, giggling madly and breaking Santana's thought process.

Santana watches with wide eyes for a long moment and bristles at the occasional giggle thrown in from the trees. A part of her considers leaving the girl and continuing on her own, it's not like she actually knows this girl, she's just a stranger who could be coaxed into talking with her.

But then again, this is the first time in the past couple of days that she's felt somewhat full and actually talked to someone who didn't cower in fear and practically pee their pants.

With a sigh, she runs after her…companion?

She runs past the trees, through the wild weeds, and through the cherry blossom leaves that let off their pink petals like soft rain droplets, unaffected by gravity.

Every time she thinks that she's lost the blonde, she finds the girl giggling and leaning by a tree or hiding in a bush. When Santana jumps at her in an effort to tag her, she flies away and runs away again. The sound of giggling trails behind her.

Santana can see a few angels straggling behind her, a few coming down from their trees and watching their fellow insane angel stringing the human along in a childish game.

Straightening up, the rogue competitive side of her is howling for a chance to win; with a roll of her neck, Santana starts to jog again, but as she hears the sound of her feet falling against the trodden earth and the sweet giggles that leave her a trail to follow, she feels herself speeding up.

Before she could take common sense into account, Santana is dashing through the trees, breathing evenly through her mouth as she follows the trail the girl left behind like a bloodhound on the hunt.

She runs the girl straight into a thicket of trees, sunlight streaming through the twisted branches in ribbons of light and illuminates Santana's way; it pushes her forward until she has cornered the angel between two trees, the sunlight flickering in through the leaves.

She would chuckle in victory, but she is so out of breath that she is moments away from collapsing. So instead, she just strides over and clamps the girl on the shoulder.

"You…Are…It…Bitch" She pants between whooping gasps and immediately doubles over onto her knees. She smirks victoriously, she can see the girl's bare feet from the position she currently holds and watches to see if the girl is going to run again, or throw a fit like her cousins usually do when they are caught.

But the girl just leans against the tree. Santana looks up to see the girl smiling happily, looking at the ladybug now cupped in her hands.

Santana pouts as the victory in the game is thrown out right from beneath her; she bristles, tries to catch her breath again and slowly straightens up her spine so that her eyes are now somewhat level with the strange girl.

With soft shaky breaths, Santana tries to regain at least a stable voice, wincing when it only comes out airy and out of breath, "What-what was that about?"

The girl jumps up again and for a moment Santana leans down, about to sprint towards her when it looks as if she was going to sprint again. But instead, the angel just cocks her head, a large smile on her face as she gently placed her hand on Santana's shoulder and kisses her on the cheek.

A fierce blush attacks Santana's cheeks and she looks away from those dizzyingly sparkly, blue eyes.

"A dead ladybug doesn't need any air" She says simply and Santana blinks, wondering if what she said is connected to what Santana asked in any way at all. She grins, expecting Santana to connect the dots. "You can thank me later"

Santana blinks again but as she feels the whooping gasps she takes in to catch her breath, she smiles a bit as it starts to make sense.

"You know that I have a million other questions for you right?" Santana says a little breathlessly

The girl just smiles cutely and scrunches up her nose.

"I don't have all the answers" She says simply and grins a bit wider "You'll have to be nice to my friends"

Santana just chuckles, having no response to that. She's not built to be nice to people, and these things aren't even people, but she supposes interacting with this girl hasn't been so dreadful.

"What's your name?" Santana asks gently and looks up to see the girl shrug happily but doesn't say anything; another question unanswered. Clearing her throat, Santana leans back and attempts to adopt her nonchalant attitude again; it would be so much easier if she had her pack of cigarettes with her. "My name is Santana Lopez" She husks with bravado, letting her egotistical take its place and smirks when the angel's eyebrows rise with interest.

But again, she doesn't say anything more and after a moment, the angel brings out the ladybug that had crawled onto her wings and holds it close. She examines it closely and gives a small smile full of secrecy and warmth.

She brings out her hand and closes one eye as she examines the bug, then Santana, and then finally shrugs and sits back down in the shade underneath the tree.

Santana blows out a deep breath and sits down across from the angel, her curiosity was thrumming with more life than she would have liked. But maybe this wouldn't be so bad as she had first thought, at least this girl wasn't an annoying dwarf like Rachel.

---

~~ X ~~

Finn's fingers play with the new piles of clothes, his feet shuffling against the floor as he moves into the girl's locker room. He winces a bit upon entering, half expecting a teacher to catch him and scold him, but after a moment of silence he grins and walks towards Rachel.

The girl is sitting down, beaming at the lockers in her usual way. He liked how happy she always was, there was always a smile on her lips; it made things easy. She wasn't complicated like Quinn was, there were so many little mines and explosives hidden beneath that calm exterior, just waiting to explode at a misstep; but Rachel wasn't like that, she was an open field of daisies and other good smelling flowers, warm and safe all the time.

Finn's face scrunched up into a smile as he shuffles closer to Rachel, bending down to sit beside her on the wooden little bench. The girl sat unseeingly, a small smile adorning her features as she seemed to ghost through her own little world, completely unaware of his presence; Finn shrugs and places the neat pile of clothes beside her, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

He never knew how to start things with girls, especially conversations. Rubbing his now empty hands over his jean clad thighs; he looks at the girl as she smiles absently. Might as well go for it.

"Rachel" He says softly, watching with amused eyes as the girl jumped a bit and whirles over to him in surprise. "I got you these" Rachel's eyes widen as she looks from him to the pile of folded clothes beside him. An even brighter smile plays at the edge of her absent smile making Finn grin and duck his head. "I thought of getting you these when I was driving to school today." Not completely accurate, Quinn had given him the money and idea but she had also been extremely mean.

"Thank you Finn, you didn't have to do that." She says and grins, but her attention isn't fully on him, she seems distracted and it made his stomach churn a little bit. He ducked his head until Rachel's eyes reconnected wit his and smiled fully once more when her complete attention was returned to him.

"What's on your mind" He asks, expecting a generic answer to his generic question.

"Quinn" She sighs dreamily, and he shoots up, his face growing hot as a little spark of jealousy curls in his stomach.

"Quinn?" He asks blankly, hoping that the "Q" was simply misheard and was actually an "F"; but apparently, it was wishful thinking as she grins and nods her head.

Rachel and Quinn, that's all that this has been about lately, it doesn't matter that Quinn's awful to the girl or that it was actually Finn who had introduced Rachel to most of this place and was her first real friend.

Nope, none of that matters now, he was just cut out of the picture for some reason and it makes him so undeniably angry. He clenches his fists as a hot flush comes over him. Words bubble up before he even knows what he's saying; word vomit, that's what it is. "Quinn. Why do you want to be her friend so bad? She's awful to you! Y-You know what she told me today? Hmm? She said that you were disgusting…and…and that she wanted to boil her clothes. I don't know what that would do but she wanted to do it because you were wearing her clothes and marinating them or something…I don't know" He regrets saying anything the moment he lets it slip; Rachel's expression changes so quickly.

How do girls do that? It takes him at least a minute to process words enough to get a proper response, but girl's expressions flip like a switch from happy to sad. Rachel was doing that now, her once smiling lips are now turned down into a trembling pout; her eyes are downcast and water slightly.

Patting her back slightly, he frowns at her sympathetically and moves to get up.

Emotional things are really difficult for him, he never really knows what to do and usually just makes things worse in the end. Apparently that sunny meadow has to have a cloud every once and a while…He'll just come back when Rachel is happy again. "See you in Glee club" He murmurs lowly and shuffles out of the locker room, his head hanging low as Rachel nods gently.

She looks as if she's collapsed on herself like a dying star. Her head is practically lying in her lap and her shoulders are hunched, as she sits dejectedly in the locker rooms, small sniffles fill the room moments later, but Finn is far from the scene by then.

---

~~ X ~~

Surprisingly, the day has turned out rather well for Quinn despite the rather unfortunate beginning with her Dad yelling in her ear and then Finn taunting her.

But Finn has been gone most of the day, getting what's-her-face clothes and Puck is doing a background check. She hadn't thought of it at the time, but she was rather successful in keeping both boys out of her hair all day and dealing with this…problem without her actually being involved. Which means that it doesn't seem like she cares, which is good, so take that Finn.

But unfortunately, it had to end some time and around the last couple of hours of the school day. Puck lurks around her, scaring away the small Cheerio group she had managed to replace Sa- a certain someone's absence- with and sidles up next to her with a shit-eating grin.

Quinn sighs and quirks an eyebrow at the boy as he continues to grin and rub his hands together.

"Well?" She inquires and crosses her arms; Puck just chuckles and holds his jacket close to him, he parts his lips as if to speak and then stops to grin again. She sighs, she's going to get nowhere with this boy. "Spit it out or leave," She growls

"Oh…I will 'spit it out' Baby, but a guy like me expects to be paid for his efforts" He leers and she slaps his head. "Hey! Watch the Mohawk baby, it's where I hide my mojo powers" He sneers.

"Shut up and tell me about Rachel." She says lowly, but the foolish boy just keeps chuckling, blowing warm air threw his hands. Boys were always like that, laughing at nothing, it was absolutely infuriating.

"Which one do you want? For me to shut up or to tell you about Rachel?" He murmurs softly as he leans against the lockers beside her. His brown eyes glint mischievously as he cocks his head closer to Quinn's. "Now pay up" He husks, smirking down at her as if he somehow possessed control over her and the little game they play.

Quinn's insides twist angrily, but no one could possibly tell from the cool front she lives underneath. Her lips twist into a sweet smile before she moves closer in measured steps toward the mohawked boy.

The boy's eyes light up happily as Quinn's lips come in a closer view; however, his joyous mood spirals downward quickly as her lips veer to his ear. Her fingers pierce his skin as they bring him closer to her lips, already moving quickly to transfers the venomous words from her tongue to his ear.

"Do I have to remind you who you are speaking to? I control who is cool here and who isn't. I put you here and I can easily knock you back down to the silly, wannabe badboy you were freshman year." She whispers fervently into his ear and pinching it tightly. She smiles with in a cold mechanical reflex as the flesh heats up beneath her fingertips.

He rips from her grasp with a cold scowl and shoves his hands into his pockets.

"Fine, her name's Rachel Berry and she moved here from New York…and now she goes here, it's a really boring story" he grumbles, Quinn cocks her head to the side and catches his dark gaze.

"That's it? Nothing else?" She says and he flashes a dark smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. His bronze skin is flushed around his neck and the red marks where Quinn's fingers had dug into his ear remain a blaringly red color, but something else had changed his appearance. There was something dark in his eyes that makes Quinn's fingers recoil, clenching into hard fists. Rebellion.

"That's it"

---

Sometimes Quinn hated Cheerios practice, the running, constant berating, and humiliation from Coach Sylvester just didn't seem worth it sometimes. She'd actually tried to get out of it once but then her father had gotten all red in the face and her mother had just rambled about how her older sister was such the perfect little Cheerio.

And that was the end of that, she hated it whenever her parents tried to compare her with her older sister, Grace. Even the name was better than hers, Daddy's friends always complimented it by saying the name just rolled off their tongues.

The name Quinn was harder to swallow apparently because nobody thought it appropriate to compliment her about it. Which was odd because the name Quinn has an easy five letters, just like Grace, but it didn't matter, it was always: Oh Grace! Such a beautiful name for a beautiful girl…Not that she cared or anything.

Anyway, Grace was the golden girl, perfect in every way, and the little angel her parents fully intend on using as a mold to form Quinn into, and that means doing everything Grace did… like Cheerios.

She groans softly as she walked to the locker room, the Cheerios bag growing heavier on her shoulder as her mind begins to dread the upcoming workout. Quinn reaches her locker and grimaces at the cold metal before slipping on her tennis shoes.

As she crouches, she can see the faint mist rising up from the showers.

She moves slowly towards the little cubical shower, just to make sure that whoever was in there wasn't a young Cheerio attempting to take up all the hot water before practice. But as she came closer to the muggy heat of the mist, she caught the faint sound of…singing?

Quinn hesitates for a moment before quietly ebbing closer. The neat pile of her familiar clothing all folded up outside the shower sends a jolt in Quinn's stomach. Those were her clothes.

The shower turns off with a quiet screech and the water pouring from the silver showerhead dies off to a lazy trickle, but the singing doesn't stop. Whoever is in there continues to hum the tune of a song that is completely unrecognizable to Quinn. The voice makes the sensitive skin of her neck rise, emanating shivers from her head to her toes.

A tickling sensation swells across her skin until it becomes as raw and weak as goose flesh, touching sensitive nerves that Quinn hadn't even realized she possessed; even the faint hairs of her arms begin to rise and react, prickling as if controlled by an unrestrained force of electricity.

The voice boomed in a round deep sound that seemed to move the very walls around her; an ancient hum that stirred something restlessly in the pit of Quinn's stomach. It charged the room with unseen electricity, glazing across Quinn's skin with a heavy and thick calmness that uncoiled her muscles in a way that even the most skilled massages could never achieve.

The voice continued in its song and subtly lulled the blonde somewhere different, where it was warm and bright and cozy. Her eyelids flutter closed and she subconsciously leaned forward, compelled by the warmth of the voice.

"Quinn?" Her eyelids flash open, erecting her spine from its lazy position against the wall. Her gaze instantly clicks with wide, chocolate eyes of an extremely confused and naked Rachel Berry.

The girl was hiding behind the curtain, her slick brown hair around her shoulders and beads of hot water dripping down her bare shoulders.

Rachel is naked…S-she has just taken a shower…which makes her without any clothes…a-and very…um…

Quinn can only stare, her mouth hanging open. Her brain is frazzled and still wrapped in the warmth of Rachel's voice, and thus, allows her to look like a fool as she stumbles upon what to say. Just look away. But the girl's voice has drained all the energy from her muscles, and leaving something as sweet and thick as nectar clinging to the back of her tongue. Either way, she can do nothing else but stare at the small beads of water that slowly roll down the very tan and bare flesh of Rachel Berry.

"Quinn?" The girl says again, snapping Quinn's attention back to the girl's dark eyes

"You look a little flushed, are you not well?" Rachel asks, and before the blonde can respond a bare arm slithers out from behind the curtain and comes towards her. Quinn jerks back just in time to avoid the girl's hot, fleshy palm from caressing her face again. On unsteady ground, Quinn takes another step. The slightly cooler air refreshes Quinn's mind, slowly pulling her from the comfortable muggy mist of the showers.

Quinn fights to not stare at the sun-kissed skin as small beads of water drip down into No-Man's land where the shower curtain drapes across Rachel's chest.

"Quinn." The girl sounds worried now, her body teetering closer. Rachel's rejected hand hesitantly remained in front of Quinn for a few lingering seconds before slowly drooping down to her side, curling uncertainly around her curtain-clad stomach.

Once Quinn is far enough, she could notice how the girl looked.

Dark bags lay beneath those chocolate eyes and the lines on her face didn't quite align with the usual exuberance the girl usually showed. Her lips twisted into a small smile, twitching slightly with pain and discomfort.

Every so often, those dark, chocolate eyes would fade out and dim, as if falling into a dream, before snapping back into focus.

Rachel looks moments from passing out and worry was bubbling up Quinn's throat like sickly bile, threatening to roll off her tongue and destroy her. But she was far too stubborn for that, so she allowed the worry to burn her throat with its acidic unease and kept her lips sealed.

Turning away from the girl, Quinn instead focuses on the folded pile of clothes; there were technically three piles, one pile of Quinn's old clothes, and the rest were stacked up clothes that Finn had bought for her.

"These are mine" Quinn says dumbly, her voice still couldn't quite shake the relaxed husky tone that had snuck up on her. Coughing into her hand, she shakes her head and fights to stay alert as she points to the pile that Rachel couldn't see behind the shower wall.

Rachel doesn't look at her; she doesn't even move to see what Quinn is pointing at. Her head just thumps lightly against the wall as a finger makes slow patterns in the shower stall, but other than that, she barely responds.

Quinn bristles at this, picking up her clothes, she huffs and moves to face the girl again with flushed cheeks. This was, honestly, a bad idea as the girl was still in the same situation as she was before Quinn had looked away. "Are you ignoring me Man hands?" She snaps from behind a large lump in her throat.

Rachel blushes, her dark gaze slowly rising from where it lay, downcast on the floor and meets with hers.

"I would never be so crude as to ignore you Quinn, you can be assured." She sighs and picks at the paint once again and she let out a small shiver, as if she were somehow cold; which should seem rather impossible, as the showers must be about a million degrees Celsius by now.

Quinn lets out a breath as her face continues to heat up; stupid locker rooms, it's a damn furnace in here.

A small, self-deprecating smile works its way across Rachel's lips as she eyes the clothes piled in Quinn's clamped hands. "You can also be assured that I will no longer be soiling your clothes any longer as Finn was quite the gentleman and bought me a new wardrobe." She murmurs softly and a real smile curls up from the sad little one from the moment before. Quinn's jaw clenches up as she sees the girl smile, beam actually, at the thought of Finn buying her new clothes.

Finn couldn't keep his mouth shut; he just had to blabber about what she had said and steal her idea for getting new clothes.

She considered telling her…But about what? That she hadn't meant to hurt her? That she hadn't meant for her cruel words to actually be heard? Or that it was really her idea to buy the girl new clothes? That it was really her, sprung up through Finn's image, which had the girl beaming so widely?

No, she could never tell the girl any of that, she was Head Cheerio and she had expectations to live up to, and caring for people like Rachel… wasn't acceptable. Gritting her teeth, she curses inwardly as the girl continues to smile, her eyes getting all sparkly at the thought of Finn being so nice to her. Anger coils tightly in her belly and runs hot flames through her veins and making her practically bite her tongue.

"Do you wanna see them? I haven't tried any on but they look rather fantastic," Rachel murmurs, her voice squeaking with such hopefulness that it almost completely overthrew the underlying pain. Rachel sways gently as she leaves the shower, with a towel wrapped tightly around her, she grabs the first thing off the pile of her new wardrobe and slips back into the shower.

Quinn could see over the top of the shower the clothes being strewn about; there was so much argyle and skirts she literally cringed. Mary Jane shoes squeaked from behind the shower walls and it made Quinn sick knowing that her money and that smile was wasted on such hideous clothes.

This reaction was wildly inappropriate; there was honestly no reason to feel so angry...It was obviously, because Finn was so fond of Rachel…and Finn meant a lot to Quinn…Yeah, that was it. That perfectly explains this feeling, anything else would be completely false and impossible.

To prove this point, she turns and leaves before the girl could leave the stall and show her the little argyle outfit. Quinn can see the girl droop in disappointment in her mind's eye and forces herself to ignore the bubbling sadness boiling up in her.

Rachel's sigh echoes through the now empty locker room and ricochets through Quinn's mind as she leaves for Cheerios practice.

---

~~ X ~~

Rachel sits on the stage of the auditorium, her feet dangling off the edge as she stares out at the empty, red theatre seats. Something odd has been happening to her lately, it started over the weekend.

She hadn't noticed it at first; it was just a silly scratching feeling on her insides, a little uncomfortable but, overall, not unbearable. But as the weekend drew on, it grew worse…It was like a little monster lived inside of her, it scratched and stretched at her inner skin and howled from its prison, making her miserable. It rattled through her bones and rushed past her ears in whooshing sounds and sometimes crawled through her body and covered her eyes so that she could see nothing but blackness.

This was obviously preposterous as the Elders had been very clear and detailed in the human and angel anatomy. There were organs, muscles, tissues, bones, ligaments, but no monsters so obviously this reaction was simply a side affect.

Sometimes she wished her Elders would teach them about side affects to things, they seemed to keep out the ugly details about what happened to things if they were not properly taken care of, simply instructed the angels to do what they were told, and live in a healthy, ignorant bliss. Obviously she wouldn't be having such delusional thoughts of monsters living in her stomach had she been properly informed of what was happening to her.

She knew all of the terms and the definitions but none of the feelings that come with it.

A wave of wooziness crashes over her and she groans softly and lets her eyelids flutter closed as her insides growled angrily at her.

"Hey, are you ready?" A familiar, low voice catches her attention. She turns to find Finn lumbering towards her with his usual sheepish smile and hands shoved into his pockets.

Rachel manages a grin behind a mild wince of pain from another loud growl emitting from inside her. She stumbles up from her seat and stands shakily in her place as Finn moves to keep her stable.

The glee club grumbles past her and move to their seats as the curly haired instructor moves to the desk facing the stage, it was time to audition for the Glee club. There were six members of the Glee club, only one of them smiled at her, and that was Finn.

A scowl is sketched on every one of their faces, making an odd impulse of shyness overtake her. Another odd thing that has taken a hold of her is waves of uncertainty and bashfulness; she's never been one to describe herself as apprehensive but being in this world does open her up to many new…experiences. Furrowing her eyebrows, she licks her lips and walks towards the center of the stage with Finn.

Another glance at the Glee club, they all look rather doubtful of her; despite them listening to her first sing she supposes a weekend has convinced them that her talent was merely a dream. Or…suppose their hoping that it was only a dream as they do not appear to be so fond of her.

Swallowing, she watches the small crowd watching her and nods to Mr. Shuester who then gestures to the man sitting at the piano.

Within seconds, the sound of piano is filling her head and she smiles as the notes thrum in her head and dance around the lyrics pounding in her memory.

"I'm a new soul I came to this strange world hoping I could learn a bit about how to give and take," Rachel smiled sweetly, her eyes fluttering closed as the music swelled inside of her. "but since I came her, felt the joy and the fear, I found myself making every possible mistake!" She sings and watches as the bored expressions of her soon to be fellow glee club members melt into fascination.

The look made something catch on fire within her, she couldn't quite explain it, but it sparked something. A passionate flame spread through her veins and licked at her heart with burning intensity, she grins wider and crescendos at the last note.

In the distance, ribbons of light filters through the dark auditorium as a lone silhouette entered the theatre and hides in the shady back row.

But none of that mattered to her right now, instead her focuse was on the expressions she could see in the dimly lit room.

The people who were previously in this room all disappeared in Rachel's mind and blended together into a single mass of audience.

Every face, delicate or round, black or white, held the same expression: jaws hanging open, eyes shining, and leaning towards her.

Seeing it made the pain grumbling within her worth it, it was nothing but a faraway thought at seeing the expectant faces of her audience.

There was a single thought that described how she was feeling, but her hazy mind only ebbed at the edge of it, the name of the feeling was at her subconscious, extending its hand to her mind but she simply could not connect.

She continues with several humming sounds and "la's" that she sings cheerfully, practically chirping the crisp notes.

"I'm a young soul in this very strange world, hoping I could learn a bit about what is true and fake. But why all this hate? Try to communicate, finding trust and love is not always easy to make." Leaning forward, she smiles wildly at the expectant faces and feels her heart pick up.

A violent wave of dizziness nearly sweep her off her feet, but she manages to keep her eyes open and onto her expectant audience and remained standing as the current of her subconscious threatened to drag her down under.

Crimson lips stretch and she extends her hand to the members of the Glee club, grinning as she sings, her heart takes flight with each note she sings and flies higher into ecstasy with the excited whispers of the glee club staring at her in awe.

"This is a happy end 'cause you don't understand everything you have done. Why's everything so wrong? This is a happy end, come and give me your hand; I'll take you far away"

Everything is trembling now, her knees buckle, her mind pulsates, and blood rushes in her ears but she remains standing as if she were singing her swan song. Suddenly, it comes to her...what it is that she is feeling...Hunger.

Hunger for the attention of these glee clubbers; starvation for the applause that is soon to come and the euphoria that follows singing.

She doesn't know why she hadn't felt it before while in her home world, she's sung many other times in plays and choirs and she always knew that she was talented, but it never felt like this.

She has never felt such a strong pull as she does now, to be standing on this stage. It just felt so right, and she was famished for it. She wanted more of it, no, she neededmore of it.

Taking a deep breath, she moves to finish her song but soon finds herself on the ground. Her eyes blink blearily at the now black marble of the stage that has replaced the shining eyes of her audience and groans at the cramped feeling in her legs.

Swallowing thickly, she hears the faint sounds of people calling her name and she tries to finish her song, for them, but can only manage out a small whimper.

Eyelids fluttering closed, she groans again and lies on her back as her wings shift and thrash from beneath her skin and her insides roar for something to pacify it. The singing is done and the dull thrumming that had satisfied her is gone and now everything is back in full rush of pain.

A rush of hushed whispers reach her ears but she is too far deep in her own experience to open her eyes and assess the situation.

"Oh shit"

"Why is Quinn Fabray here?"

"How'd she get here so fast?"

"Don't look her in the eye"

"She's practically sprinting!"

The feeling of soft hands on her torso, jostling her slightly, allows enough turmulation to allow her to crawl out from the abyss of unconsciousness for a moment. Her eyelids flutter open long enough to see a blonde girl.

The Glee club had called her Quinn, but to Rachel she looks completely different.

Her eyes were wide and concerned and her cheeks were tinted pink, it was as if someone scooped the hermit from its shell and revealed its vulnerable pink body to her.

Moments later, the hermit scrambles back into its cold shell and the girl hardens, her jaw clenching slightly as she barks out orders and insults to the Glee club. Her eyelids droop closed again, her mind far too occupied with whatever was going on within her to focus on what was happening outside.

The last thing she notices is being lifted up from the hard auditorium floor and held tightly in soft, warm arms.

---

Yikes that was long! I'm sorry! I hate making it so long, cause I have reading (and writing apparently) ADD so if a story is really long I'll just stop and read it later. And later is usual a loott later soo...Yeah. I feel your pain. But I have to have a certain amount of things in a chapter before I can cut it off.

Also, don't worry! This is a faberry relationship story! I know I'm adding a lot of boys into the story but they are important to the story! Their feelings still matter.

:)

Um..Yeah, sorry again for the long wait. I hate it too but what can I do? Sigh...anyway, thanks for sticking through the wait and the obnoxiously long authors notes :D