A/N
Hiya! Here is the next Joe chapter by the brill Zemmamma777
Enjoy! :)
Joe's POV
I swung by Quinn's later that night, sporting a cardigan, t-shirt and jeans, my dreads pulled back into a ponytail. She looked absolutely beautiful in a striped pink dress, her bangs pulled back and the ever-present cross charm around her neck.
"Hello there, Joseph," she quipped.
"Good evening, Ms. Fabray," I replied in an exaggerated English butler voice. "Where to?"
"Oh, well I thought we could make a little pass by this quaint little restaurant called 'Breadstix'. Rumour has it, there's quite the shindig going on there!" she shot back in an amazing English accent.
"Hmm, I'm afraid I am unfamiliar with the location of this wondrous place, would you be ever so kind as to direct me to it?"
"Oh, why certainly, old chap!"
We both doubled over laughing.
I started up the car and wiped away a tear of laughter, "I have a feeling that if anybody who was British heard that, they'd kill us for how stereotypical we were being right there!"
"Well, I don't know about killing," she drawled in her accent.
She kept giving me the directions in that drawling upper-class English accent, and when we pulled up to the legendary Lima restaurant, I couldn't help but stand there for a moment and process my first sight of the place.
"What do ya think?" she asked, sidling up to me with a smile on her face, surveying my facial expression.
"I honestly don't know what to think of it. I mean, there's part of me that's ever-so-slightly disappointed after all this stuff I've heard about it, and another part of me's in wonder because I haven't really ever seen anything like this before!"
"Well, that, sir, is a very serious predicament you find yourself in. We shall have to resolve that!" she said, once again slipping into her accent.
"Stop it!" I wheezed out with laughter as she led me into the restaurant.
We had arrived about a half-an-hour before the party was going to start, and the restaurant was still serving customers, so we wisely sobered up once we actually got in. That is, until she snorted out her withheld laughter, so I gently put my arm across her back and steered her towards the podium a few feet away, where a very perplexed employee was staring at us with wide eyes.
"Hi there, we are Joseph Hart and Quinn Fabray, we're part of the McKinley High God Squad, which is performing here for the party later on," I announced while Quinn had her back turned, trying to calm down.
"Ah, yes, right this way," he said, spinning around and marching towards the back of the restaurant. I turned to Quinn and set my arm on my hip, offering for her to loop her arm around mine for us to go to our destination. I raised my eyebrows and made a very 'upper-class' face at her and she complied.
When we got to the back, we saw Sam and Mercedes there, and the employee showed us to a little anteroom where we did a quick little run-through of the song. We had decided at the meeting to not mention that we were going to perform at Santana's request, feeling that we wanted to make it a surprise for her. They wanted me to introduce it all.
Before long, we heard Sugar making her little speech.
"And now, from heaven above, give it up for the God Squad!" she announced, and we walked out.
I grabbed a mike. "Hi, my name's Joe. Santana Lopez asked me if the God Squad could sing a love song for Brittany S. Pierce and after thinking and praying about it, I knew there was only one right answer: absolutely. Love is love, man. So here's for Brittany, from Santana."
I loved seeing Santana smile when I said that, knowing I'd done the right thing. A few cheers followed my speech as a quickly made my way back to the stage.
Quinn sounded absolutely angelic singing the lead and I had a blast singing with them. We got up wandered a little until we went back to the stage, with Santana and Brittany slow-dancing in front of us, along with several other couples, all in their own little worlds. I wonder what that'd be like. We finished up the song and I went and grabbed a seat at an empty table while the others talked with some of their Glee club friends.
I didn't want to intrude on that, despite it having been about a week that I've been at McKinley and there was a slight mutual knowledge of the 'who's who' going on. I was brought out of my thoughts when someone sat opposite me.
"Joe, right?" the brown-haired giant asked. "Finn Hudson," he added, extending his hand.
"Yeah, pleasure to officially meet you, man!" I said.
"Thanks, and ditto. You know, you did a great job up there. You have a nice voice, Rachel was saying the same thing after she heard the singing telegram you guys did for her. You should totally join Glee club!"
"Yeah, Quinn's talked to me about that. I'd love to, man, I'm just trying to find the right song to kinda… showcase myself and what I bring to the table, you know?" I said hesitantly, looking at him to see if what I said made sense.
"Oh, yeah, I hear ya man!" Finn replied enthusiastically.
At that moment, music came on and Finn craned his head.
"Well, I have to go meet up with Rachel, so… see ya!" and with that Finn leapt up and into the dancing throng of students.
I wasn't alone for long, as Quinn came up to the table, a huge grin on her face.
"You look so lonely over here, Joey! Come on and dance!" she said over the music.
"Joey? That's your new little 'pet name'? And I don't know…" I finished uncertainly.
"Yeah, I kinda like it," she stated simply, jumping forward, grabbing my hand and dragging me to my feet.
I decided to co-operate with her, and she held my hand aloft as she led me through the crowd. We stopped in what I assumed was the heart of the crowd and she spun around to face me and began dancing.
I stood there, shuffling awkwardly for a bit.
"Oh, loosen up, mop-head!" she shouted, laughing.
I gave a little shrug and let myself get carried away by the music, my body moving along with it.
"There ya go!" Quinn said appreciatively, moving a little closer.
Some few seconds later, she stepped a little closer and snaked her arms loosely around my neck, still moving to the beat. My hands went to her hips by some deeply ingrained instinct and we sat there for a bit, moving and in our own little world.
I'm sure it was longer than that, but it seemed that the moment we started dancing like that, the song ended, and we both hesitated a little bit before separating to applaud the performance.
Later that night, when all the festivities had petered out, I was driving back with Quinn in the passenger seat; her legs tucked up beneath her and her head leaned against the window, asleep. I pulled up to her house, and went around to her side, carefully opening the door and undoing her seatbelt, pulling her into my arms and gently kicking her door closed.
I walked up to the front door and rang the door bell. Judy came and answered it almost immediately.
"Hi there Joseph, how was it?" she asked. "Is Quinnie alright?"
"Hey, it was great! She's just tired, she danced a lot tonight and fell asleep as soon as she sat down in the car."
"Oh, okay. Well, why don't you come in and you can bring her up to her room," Judy suggested, standing back and holding the door open.
I kicked off my sandals and started slowly going up the stairs, minding that I didn't bump Quinn into anything. I spotted the room that just had to be hers, judging by the décor, so I went in and slowly set her down on her bed, tucking her in.
She looked so sweet and angelic asleep. Not that she didn't look it when she was awake, it was just more obvious now.
"G'night, Q," I whispered, leaning forward and giving her a light kiss on her forehead, before tiptoeing out of the room and back to the hallway, where Judy stood with her arms crossed, smiling.
"Thank you very much, Joseph," she said, walking up and giving me a hug.
"Any time, ma'am," I replied, returning the hug.
She pulled away. "Say hi to your mother for me, will you?"
"For sure!"
My phone buzzed at 10:21 am the next day, with it displaying a new text from Quinn.
'Hey Joey! Thanks soooo much for tucking me in last night! My mom told me that was you! :D You know you could've just woken me up, right? :P'
I smiled and replied.
'Haha, no problem, Q. And I'd have felt guilty about waking you up! You looked out for the count and nicely settled into your sleep! Waking you might have done more harm than good! And what's with these ':D' and ':P' things? They make no sense!'
I didn't have to wait long for the reply.
'True, and I appreciate it! :) And they're 'emoticons'! Little faces that express things like smiling or joking, that kinda thing. That way, you get a better sense of the way someone's saying something, instead of having to guess whether they're serious or joking. Just tilt your head to the left, look at them, and you'll see it! XD'
I did as she told me and found out she was right.
'THAT IS SO COOL! You do know I'm going to become addicted to this, right? :P'
The next school week went by without any real incident, just Quinn and I hanging out as per usual, and then on Saturday, there was the Regionals competition for the Glee club. I got there early and grabbed a good spot in the auditorium, popping in the earphones to my phone and listening to music while getting a head start on my homework for the weekend, all the while trying to pick out a good song to audition with for the Glee club. After a while, the competition started and there were some wicked acts on, but best of all was our Glee club, who hit it out of the park! I'm so happy they won, because if I'm able to get in, I'll have a chance to compete with them at Nationals!
I quickly visited them afterwards and gave Quinn a huge hug.
"Congratulations, Q!" I told her. "Hey, did you want to, possibly, if you had time, if it's totally alright with you, ummm, hang out once you're done here?"
"That was a long stall to ask to hang out," she remarked, laughing, but then adopting a sympathetic look. "But I can't, I'm so sorry, Joe. I'm going to Finn and Rachel's wedding afterwards and I have to go back home to get my dress, get ready, and got there, so no time, sorry."
"It's all cool!" I exclaimed, trying to get some semblance of non-chalance into my voice to mask my disappointment. "I'll text you tomorrow, then? I don't think you want me bothering you when you're at the ceremony, do you?"
"I wouldn't mind, personally, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Finn and Rachel might," she joked. "See ya!"
My drive back was uneventful, but it was once I got back that that changed.
I had gone for a while to go grab a cup of coffee from the Lima Bean, which Quinn had also showed to me one day after school, sipping it patiently and just hanging around. I decided to finally go back home, pulling into the driveway and bounding up the front steps and in through the door.
"Joseph? Is that you? Are you alright?" My mom said, coming into view and her face visibly tear-streaked.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Mom. What's the matter?" I asked suspiciously.
"Honey, it's Quinn. She got into a car accident on the way to the wedding!" Mom said, sobbing uncontrollably and wrapping her arms around me.
I stood there in shock. It almost felt like my insides dropped down two feet. My arm shot out to the wall beside me, bracing myself against it as I felt like my legs were going to give out at any moment.
"Where is she now?" I asked in a hollow voice, my eyes beginning to sting with tears.
"Lima General Hospital, it's on the main road," she said.
With that, I turned back out and bolted to my car, pulling out and heading out as fast as I could within the limit and respecting the rules of the road. It wouldn't do much good to get in a car accident on my way to go visit Quinn. Once I got there, my hands fumbled for the lock button on my key and I broke out into a dead sprint once I heard the chirp that signalled my car being locked.
I slid to a stop in front of the front desk.
"Quinn Fa-Fabray, car accident," I managed to wheeze out.
"3rd floor," the receptionist told me. I went over to the elevator, pressing the button to call it, jamming it incessantly in an attempt to get it there faster.
Once one came, I closed the doors immediately, getting it going and jumping up and down to pass the time as it slowly ascended.
I strode up to the desk there and repeated my query from downstairs.
"Down that hall for the automotive incidents waiting room."
I muttered a quick word of thanks and ran to the indicated waiting room. There sat several of the Glee club members, all looking terribly distraught. I caught a reflection of myself in the window to a nearby room. I didn't look any better with puffy red eyes and some of my dreads flopped over the top of my head.
I looked to Sam and Mercedes.
"Any word?" I asked.
"Externally, it's just a few scratches here and there, but it's the internal damage that they're going over right now" Mercedes said quietly.
"Joseph!" I heard Judy's voice, and looked up to see her coming out of a room down a hall on the other side of the waiting room.
I went to go talk to her, only for a nurse to step in front of me.
"I'm sorry, but only close friends and family can visit her," they said sternly.
"I am a close friend; I could even count as family!" I shouted.
The nurse looked back at Judy, who nodded her acknowledgement of the truth in what I had said.
As I walked by, ready to go to Quinn's room, I was steeling myself for what I was about to see. Mercedes said that externally, it was just a few scratches. Inside. That was what might cause some problems. Even more than the exterior ones.
I crossed the threshold into the room Judy indicated and I beheld Quinn.
"Oh, Quinn," I said, covering my mouth.
