Sorry this took so long! Yikes, I promise this was not under normal circumstances!

Thanks for the reviews, as always.


Rachel barely takes up the bed.

She's so small and delicate, her body just barely dips into the bed covers. Like a little stuffed animal, or a feather placed nicely on the bed for decoration. From the moment of being put down Rachel had immediately curled up into a small ball, her knees now press closely to her chest and her head nuzzles into the crook of her arms.

Her brunette hair is splayed around her head in a dark halo; the only thing that really shows that she is actually alive is the faint in and out movement of her chest as she breathes.

Rachel winces and groans softly, her face pressing pitifully into the soft down of the pillows. She sounds like a small wounded animal, or even something more helpless if anything more existed.

Quinn sighs and watches the girl from her invisible roost in the doorway, her body leaning against the frame with one foot out and one foot in. She hesitates from coming in completely, feeling almost as if she were trespassing – with the girl in her bed, the room doesn't look the same. It looks smaller and more comfortable; an illusion casts upon her painted walls and makes them look two shades lighter; it even smells a bit sweeter. But when the small girl groans again, Quinn swallows softly and infringes upon her own room, tip toeing carefully to the bed to avoid the sweet spots of her floorboards that croak loudly if approached.

Reaching the soft cushioned sheets, Quinn perches herself in the corner and hesitantly looks down at the girl. A sign of hunger is written in her shallow breaths and quiet whimpers, patching up in the girl's skin and dark hollowed cheeks.

Despite this blemish of infirmity, the girl still looks beautiful. Her brown chocolate hair looks lively in the dim glowing light, bringing out the many different shades of brown in her hair that looks so soft, it's as if it was fashioned from silk. Her arms lie intertwined against her chest with her fingertips inches from her lips.

Almost in a daze, Quinn feels her hand hover in midair and brush the smooth, warm skin of her wrist. Quinn's fingertips sweep across the dark veins that pulse beneath the thin layer of skin and runs up the small palm of a hand that should belong to a child, and finally resting comfortably on the soft, pink cushion of Rachel's fingertips. Rachel's long, slender fingers curl in a subconscious reflex until the pearly half-moons of her fingernails are pressed gently into her palm.

A small sigh breathes past Rachel's parted lips and she shifts lightly on the bed and curls further into herself. Her eyelids flutter gently as Rachel just barely grazes consciousness but drifts down again into a half-sleep. Quinn's heart thrums in delight and sits closer to Rachel's nearly conscious form.

How they had gotten home, Quinn barely remembers. The day wraps around her mind loosely and the memories run around her head like a carousel hyped up on adrenaline.

She can barely focus on one thing before going onto another; however, what does remain somewhat constant in her mind is the way Rachel had smiled over the very small and silent audience. Right before she passed out, she had looked like a star.

The rest of the day up until now is a combination of jumbled up shock and anxiety. She supposes she drove home in Finn's car but she doesn't remember whether or not he was in there with her or not; all she remembers is seeing Rachel's vulnerable and unconscious body limp in the chair.

And now Rachel was lying on Quinn's bed while soup is being microwaved downstairs in the kitchen. Quinn feels somewhat weird, like she's not really herself. She feels strangely out of her body. Up in the clouds, as her mother always likes to say; absently, she brushes a hand across Rachel's sweaty forehead. She knows that this is something that she would never do had she not felt this way, but it felt nice not being herself. She could just let herself float and react without worrying about consequences or Quinn Fabray things.

She blames all of this on something reacting within her. This something coils tightly from deep within her belly and flushes her skin as if a small fire were set flickering at her insides, spitting and crackling with heat. It boils her insides in a slow and torturous roast until she is popping and sizzling with affection and it makes her body cry with such a distressed mixture of pain and joy.

Shaking her head, she focuses on Rachel and can't help but notice how different she looks. Not different in her day-to-day appearance, but how different she looks from everybody else.

It was hard to see, but once it was spotted, there was no denying that Rachel looked unique. The problem is that Quinn can't actually find the source of her dissimilar appearance. It's not like Rachel has a sixth finger or two left feet; the dissimilarity was dispersed subtly through the delicate yet broad slight of her shoulders, the pronounced and outlandish form of her nose, and the strangely handsome face. It didn't look right, yet was completely natural on her, fitted her even.

With a quiet breath, her heart pulses heat through her veins and leaves her cheeks flushed and fingers trembling. A distinct beeping noise calls Quinn from her inspection and draws a slight stir from Rachel's stupor. Quinn jumps from the bed and leaps down the stairs, skidding into the kitchen to throw open the microwave door. There, lying in the middle of the microwave and bellowing wispy puffs of steam is the infamous chicken noodle soup.

Grace was the delicate flower of the family; whenever she got sick, and she often did, Quinn would watch her mother make a good hearty bowl of chicken noodle soup. Her mother would hum around the kitchen and say that a good bowl of soup could cure any ailment. And for Grace, this was very true since Grace had the act of sickness perfected to an art. She would cough lightly into her palm and peek over her blankets with rosy cheeks and a small grimace that seemed to look more like a smile. She would glance at the steaming soup with an inquisitive gleam to her eyes and blow the steam from the soup before stopping to cough again.

She would do this until Mom and Dad would worry themselves sick and fly about like little hummingbirds to spoon feed the soup to dearest Grace. Without fail, beloved Grace would be up again the next day stronger than ever and kissing her parents' cheek on her way out to school. Quinn never quite learned Grace's trick, if she ever had one, for whenever she was sick she had a rattling cough that shuddered through her entire body and an unyielding chill. Her parents were too afraid of getting sick themselves to care for her the way they did for Grace and always scolded her by saying she was too old to be spoon-fed.

Which is fine, because Quinn always liked being older, preferred it actually.

She doesn't need anybody's help with anything.

Blinking, she tears her mind's eyes away from the memory and grasps the soup, feeling the heat scald her palms as she brings it up to her nose for a small sniff.

Within moments, she is back at the door. It opens with a faint creak and light floods into the dark room slowly. Rachel is still on her bed, but she is no longer asleep.

She looks tired, there are dark bags underneath her eyes and her lips twitch downwards at the end of her trembling smile. But what catches Quinn's attention is what she's grasping; those gentle fingertips scratch and knead softly at the ruffled head of Quinn's old sleep mate and friend Lamby. Quinn releases a soft breath, feels her heart hitch slightly at the sight, and watches hopelessly as Rachel inspects the lamb. Rachel is holding a very intimate part of her past and with every movement Quinn feels her cheeks tint with shame and her heart flutter.

"Where did you find that?" Quinn asks gruffly and Rachel's gaze flashes up to her own. Her coffee tinted eyes gleam slightly as she smiles and strokes the ruffled head of the lamb again.

"He was under your pillow" She responds, her voice cracks a bit with sleep but it was warm with delight and Quinn dips her head in humiliation. When she was young, she'd hold the lamb close to her chest and kiss its head but as she grew older she felt that she was too mature for such things. So she hid Lamby under a pillow and would sneak her arm under the soft, linen cloth and stroke its head every once and a while.

"You weren't supposed to see that" She mumbles and scratches the back of her head with one hand as her cheeks flush a deep crimson.

"I think he's cute, what's his name?" Rachel says and Quinn dips her head and watches as her feet scuff against the floor.

"She" Quinn clears her throat and looks anywhere but at Rachel "Um, her name is Lamby" Quinn cringes, it sounded even worse out loud then it did in her head, she wasn't the most creative child. But Rachel doesn't seem to think it strange, she blinks and turns the lamb back towards her and smiles gallantly at it.

"Well hello Lamby, it's nice to meet you" She grins, grabs its hoofed arm, shakes it gently, and then kisses its cheeks. Quinn blushes and looks down at her hands, the whole scene felt terribly silly.

"I don't know how it got up there, I thought I gave it away a while ago" She lies and moves closer to Rachel.

Rachel doesn't respond of course, the lie had been far too obvious so she did the safest thing and remained silent. The room soon fills itself with unuttered whispers and shy silence and the shadows around the room begin to dance around the room as the minutes pass and the sun creeps below the horizon.

Dark shadows contort in the folds and creases of the pillow Rachel lays on; twisting and elongating in the darkening room from behind Rachel like little black wings. However, a small rumbling sound seems to drag Quinn from her stupor and she glances back to Rachel's face.

There was something deeply unsettling about the exhaustion clinging to Rachel's eyelids and the sallow gleam to her skin. Looking down at her hands, Quinn is reminded of the soup in her hands, now lukewarm. Sighing, she hands the soup to Rachel and lets her heart ache tirelessly; of course, she would be the disgraceful host to let their guest eat cold soup.

The moment Rachel gets a hold of the soup, something interesting happens. Her whole body seems to teeter into a look of uninhibited starvation. Crimson lips curl impatiently and her chocolate eyes flash with utter helplessness while her fingers begin to tremble as if she were opening a present she's kept unopened for nearly a year. Yet, she doesn't act with the impatience her body seems to imitate. With a garish grin, she thanks Quinn, puts the bowl in her lap, and inspects the spoon.

"Are you waiting for it to dance for you?" Quinn asks, the skittish impatience creeps into her voice and makes her knees bounce as she wearily watches Rachel.

"Well of course not Quinn, we both know that soup can't dance," She laughs simply, having taken Quinn's quip painfully literal, and grimaces with a pitiful groan while her stomach growls. "No, I was merely admiring this...thing...a...um..." Rachel's eyes widen and she seems to nod to Quinn, as if asking for what the thing in her hand actually was.

"...Spoon?"

"Yes! Of course! Spoon, silly me, it's a very nice spoon" She smiles gently and runs her hands over the silver, thumbing the faint curve and art carving in the stem.

Quinn waits for another moment before growing impatient again, and with this new wave of avidity came an overwhelming perfectionist.

With a sigh, she grabs the soup from Rachel's trembling hands and rips the spoon from her as well, and in the wake of Rachel's devastation, she gently molds Rachel into the perfect position.

Running gentle fingers over Rachel's delicate chin, she silently demands for Rachel to open her mouth, a command that Rachel quickly obeys. With great calculation, Quinn swirls the perfect amount of noodles, broth, and chicken onto the spoon and waits for the spare drips to leave the spoon before taking it to Rachel's waiting lips.

For a few moments, all that can be heard is the slurping of soup and the faint breaths between both girls. But eventually the silence overwhelms Rachel's talkative soul. "I wanted to-" Quinn raises the spoon and Rachel moves closer and sips the soup, her teeth clashing against the spoon. "Thank you for taking care-" Quinn shuts her up again with another deliberated spoonful of soup. "Of me" She finishes finally, but Quinn doesn't look at her.

Instead, she keeps swirling the soup with the spoon, but she can hear Rachel grow restless with the lack of attention. "The soup is deli-"

"Shh" Quinn cuts her off quickly and gives her another spoonful, just barely managing to bite off the smile threatening to crack at her lips by Rachel's wide, frustrated eyes. Rachel's lips turn into a stiff, firm line of aggravated confusion as she subtly chews a chicken piece.

Quinn was starting to feel a little bit more like herself, she supposes the shock of Rachel's collapse has worn off and left her to wallow in her calculations and perfections. Yet, even with the chains of normalcy yanking her adrift mind back into her steel-trapped body, she still feels warmth emanate through her.

Her short-stemmed rage has yet to flare to life just as Rachel's ever-present smile hasn't seemed terribly disturbing yet. "When was the last time you've eaten?" She asks gently and gathers another spoonful; Rachel stops herself from smacking her lips and stares curiously at Quinn. "What? Don't look at me like that, like you don't know what's going on," She continues softly, her spoon swirling the soup around in a whirlpool. "You look exactly like one of my new Cheerios; she starved herself to fit into her Cheerios uniform and ended up passing out on the first day of practice. Although it's a completely different situation in Cheerios since coach Sylvester believes that if you don't pass out at least once a week when you first join, you aren't conditioning yourself correctly," Quinn quickly bites her lip, angry with herself for rambling.

Rachel regards her calmly, inspecting her slowly and deliberately for something, but she gives up eventually with a sigh.

"I haven't eaten since Saturday morning, I had berries at Finn's house" She smiles faintly and Quinn sits back. The bed creaks with the sudden movement and Rachel winces at Quinn's wide eyes.

Quinn has to open her mouth a bit, as the tight and clenched feeling of grinding her teeth begins to set in. As the wave of bewilderment recedes from her mind, new waves of emotions begin to lick at the edges of her mind. Efficiently drowning her with bafflement, anger, worry, some kind of second-hand hunger, and at last amusement.

Finally, Quinn lets her head fall from its stiff position on her shoulders. She lolls it from side to side as her shoulders quake in aggravated laughter.

"Well, that explains it" She says with a wheezy breath, her stomach churns as her mind tries to calculate the total amount of hours she'd not eaten. A dull nausea overcomes her in churning waves that twist within her. "Why in the worldwould you do that?"

She lifts her head and looks up at Rachel, who is currently staring at her hands and looking extremely guilty. Quickly, Quinn scoops up another spoonful of the diminishing soup, puts a protective hand beneath the dripping spoon, and gives it to Rachel.

Sure, Quinn will admit that she has put herself through extreme diets; she's had to endure the Sylvester diet since freshman year. She's even skipped a meal or two, but this is insane.

"I guess it just didn't cross my mind"

"D-didn't cross your mind?" Quinn huffs and stares at the soup, hoping that its thick, frothy liquid could decode the riddles Rachel gives her. Doesn't cross her mind? In her distraction, Rachel steals the spoon from Quinn's stiff fingers.

Quinn barely notices the movement with her mind desperately scrambling for explanations and theories other than the one Rachel gave her. There has to be something more, something heartbreakingly complicated behind those seemingly simple words. It slipped my mind. That's how it always is, she's learned, that there is no such thing as a whole truth. There are always convoluted secrets entwined and pulsating just inches beneath the surface of something seemingly simple.

Eventually, she comes up with the most obvious and easily fixable explanation. Sue Sylvester's crazy diet. "Cheerios is only for a certain group of people, if you have to starve yourself to get in, it isn't worth it," She says finally between clenched teeth.

A part of her mind wants to say the beautiful words lacing themselves into a deep and caring speech. But her lips are tight and only lets the stern, cold words of a half-hearted demand slip past. "Besides, I wouldn't let you in anyway so you're only wasting your time hurting yourself like this" She finishes weakly and watches her hands interlace and clench in her lap instead of Rachel. "Okay?"

"Okay…" Rachel murmurs, her voice ending in a slight upturned tone, as if she were asking a question, but she says nothing more.

"Good" She says finally, her voice quivering skittishly. She lets herself push the subject down even though her mind still races for answers.

There is a moment of silence as both girls avoid each other's eyes; but at the faint clatter of silver against porcelain, Quinn looks down towards Rachel. Immediately, she sees the silver spoon hover into her line of vision, gathering the broth liquid into the curved silver.

Quinn squints and glances up to Rachel as she bites her lip and slowly brings to spoon up to Quinn's pursed lips. Tentatively, Quinn leans back and avoids the persistent push of the spoon. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Rachel says playfully, and pushes the spoon forward as if she were moving to feed a small child.

Every nerve in Quinn's body tells her to resent giving in to being cared for. Ever since her bitter rejection of love that Grace had gained so effortlessly she'd trained herself, subconsciously, to despise giving in to care. Instead she grew lean, strong, and stony.

Slowly, she had turned the rose petal warmth of her youthful face into a stony, cold countenance that showed only shallow contempt and quick rage rather than the restlessly shy smiles and quirky mirth of her childhood. The warmth of a human's touch became overbearing and sticky as she promptly rewired herself to yearn for the cold and distant respect of her parents rather than the tender affection that had been so easily given to Grace.

Swallowing, she watches through narrowed eyes at Rachel's seemingly innocent fingers as they quiver innately around the spoon. Suspicious eyes dart warily to the spoon, to slightly quirked lips, and finally to those dark gold-speckled eyes that widen naturally with lighthearted curiosity.

She remembers Finn's overwhelming closeness and tries to connect it to Rachel but the past shines through the thick veil of ice and a warm flush paints across as the memories flood her mind. The tender touch of lips to her cheek, the caress of a soft hand, and through the haziness of a dreamy subconscious the faint smell of peaches wafts to her senses.

All of this had been rather terrifying at the time, but she supposes they were nothing like Finn's overbearing hugs that last too long. They were almost…pleasurable, she supposes.

With a slight sigh, that could have been easily mistaken for a groan, she leans forward ever so slightly and parts her lips. Her eyelids flutter closed and she can hear Rachel's faint laugh as the spoon is brought close to her pink lips; Quinn shivers as the spoon clinks metallically against her teeth and she sips the soup in a way that she hopes is graceful.

When Rachel pulls back, Quinn gulps and leans back with a small smile. She shifts and rubs her hands over her thighs awkwardly as Rachel appraises her with those intensely dark eyes. Quinn notices that a healthy color has begun to drip back into her cheeks.

As the silence grows on, the two girls fall into a warm, sticky silence. Wandering eyes soon become locked on the other, and once disjointedly faint breaths become synchronized. And with each second, the accelerated pulse of each heart picks up the other's rhythm in a harmonized beat. Quinn blinks and tries to rip away, her breath becoming ragged as she attempts to increase the space between them.

In an attempt to gain an upper hand, Quinn appraises Rachel and sees the change in expression. Her eyelids have drooped a little in sleepiness and her smile had loosened – not gone, just softened. The look is nearly indescribable and it sends a little stressed flutter to contract in her tightened heartstrings, beating and pulsing at every pinpoint in her heart.

"I'm going to hug you now," Rachel says slowly, looking into Quinn's eyes as she comes up close.

Something about the way Rachel gives her every chance to back away from the affection paralyzes Quinn into the enclosing arms.

Rachel's small body soon smothers Quinn as she holds her close. Rachel's dark curls tickle Quinn's nose as her lips rest at the base of her ear. Despite being informed of the girl touching her, the contact still leaves her surprised and she flails awkwardly as the girl's warm body is pressed tightly against Quinn's front. "Thank you" Rachel sighs, and Quinn assumes that it was because of the soup, she would speak but her throat is spastically closing.

Nobody has ever really hugged her before, not without Quinn making the first move, neither has it felt this intimate before. Quinn's eyelids flutter closed and she sags into the girl's embrace, letting herself enjoy the moment. With Quinn's ear pressed so close, she can hear the steady pulse of Rachel's heart and feels the warm skin brush against her cheek with each breath.

There is a movement but Quinn keeps her eyes closed and isolates herself with this feeling. She can sense a hand hovering close to her face as the air around it fluctuates with its disturbance; but before she can sense what the hand is doing there, two gentle fingertips stroke down the bridge of her nose tantalizingly. The moment it happens, an embarrassing whimper breathes past her lips, she feels her skin tingle in delight, and she just melts.

Rachel murmurs something, but Quinn's ear is too distracted by the heavy thump of Rachel's heart to hear the deep rumble of her voice. But the words "interesting" and "kitten" stick out of the jumbled mass of noise.

They must have sat there for hours, or maybe not. Nothing makes sense right now. All that sticks out in her mind is the gentle stroke down the bridge of her nose and the thump of Rachel's steady heart.

"Quinn" A voice rumbles so deeply and coldly that it could never belong to Rachel Berry. An anxious flutter shivers through her heart as Quinn slowly falls out of the embrace, feeling dizzy and light. She turns towards the voice with weary eyes and wringing hands. Her lips flatten into a straight line, as her assumptions are made true by the two figures standing in the doorway in front of her. How long have her parents been standing there? Could they see her? The panicked thoughts finally knocks Quinn back into her protective shield of steel glass.

Standing up, she fixes the wrinkles from her skirt and feels her eyes dart wearily to her parents.

They stand in darkness, the light pools in from the hallway and illuminate everything around them but their expressions, leaving Quinn jumpy with anxiety of the unknown.

Russell stands strong and stiff, his strong hand lying possessively at the base of Judy's neck and his other hand flexing in the air by his waist. Judy, meanwhile, curls around him and looks more like accessory than a real person.

Despite being blind to their faces, she can still sense the aura of cold indifference exuding from their carefully chosen positions. Gulping, Quinn can hear Rachel struggle up from her position on the bed.

At hearing the girl struggle, Quinn breaks from her militant stance and helps Rachel up with a single hand. She watches apprehensively as Rachel stands with weak, wobbly legs and expects her to collapse in that first shaky moment.

However, being the curiously spontaneous creature that she is, Rachel straightens and stands strongly at the side of the bed. But instead of running up to meet Quinn's parents in an overbearing excitement that had greeted her, Rachel takes a much softer approach and chooses not to greet them at all. She stands there and watches as Russell takes a step forward and tows Judy with him. "Quinn, you know not to bring guests over uninvited" He says quietly. This is how the most stringent of his values are enforced, through a strict and quiet manner. It is the most terrifying kind.

Rachel seems to sense this and takes an almost impercievable step behind Quinn. Confused by her actions, Quinn tilts her head to see Rachel curling almost shyly behind Quinn's stiff form. But as she looks closer, she sees that it isn't timidity that makes Rachel look so small, it's fear.

Trepidation glimmers in those large, dark orbs like the bright shimmer of water against a bright sun. Her expression is completley unlike the benevolent and charming girl Quinn has been forced to meet. Everything has hardened ever so slightly; her smile has receeded until only the edges turn up faintly, and those wide eyes have turned cautious.

"Quinn, did you hear your father?" Judy speaks softly and looks through the girls in front of her through distant, pale eyes. As if she wasn't expected to be heard and was only going through the motions.

"Yes, I'm sorry" Quinn says quickly and rips her gaze from the odd girl hiding behind her. "Rachel here got sick and I offered to take her home and nurse her back into health" she says stiffly, each word sounding awkward on her tongue as if she were perfoming a badly written script.

Russell's features soften vaguely at the mention of honorable charity and lets the tension drop in the room as if it were an object to simply put down. Quinn quietly and subtly stores away the approval so that the warmth of it can be enjoyed later in solitude.

The shift in mood is apparent and both parents adjust their appearance to the quiet concern that is to be shown. "You poor child" is murmured quietly and quickly forgotten while Russell tips his head to observe the girl currently hiding behind Quinn.

"What is your name?" Russell asks and is met with an unforgiving silence.

"She is shy today, I guess" Quinn pipes in before the silence draws on for too long. "still recovering"

After a gentle nudge, Rachel peeks out and walks solemnly towards Russell and Judy. She holds herself with the dignity of a martyr and keeps the faint curve of a smile on her lips as she outstretches a slender hand.

"My name is Rachel Berry" She murmurs and slips her hand into Russells hard and calloused hand.

"It's always a pleasure to meet a new friend of my darling Quinnie" He says with a smile. Performing each word with such grandiose delight that Rachel begins to relax into the shake. Despite the fact that Russell's emotions usually run from cold to colder, he enacts the role of a proud father perfectly. "I'm Russell Fabray and this is my stunning wife Judy," He exclaims and puts his hand at the back of her neck, and rubs his thumb gently at the base. It was meant to look endearing but it just makes her look even more like a spineless puppet than before, and as if cued, Judy lets off a shining smile.

"Would you like to stay for dinner Rachel?" Judy chips in good-naturely, it was an empty request meant to make them sound like wonderful hosts. But by the way Rachel smiles, Quinn fears that she might actually accept the request.

"Rachel really must be getting back," She chirps and recieves a cold glance by Russell and seals her lips. She was supposed to let Rachel refuse on her own because now they seem unsincere. But nobody knows that Rachel is exactly the person to ignore the invisible rules surrounding them and actually accept the request. Quinn will never win.

"As much as I appreciate your request Mr. and Mrs. Fabray, I must refuse," Rachel pipes in, making the tension building up melt once again.

Rachel walks a little unsteadily down the steps and Quinn adjusts her stride so that she can continue to guide Rachel gently out of the house.

"What was that all about?" Quinn asks once they are both out of earshot.

"They are scarier all grown up" Is all she mumbles so quietly that Quinn almost misses it. But when it does finally register in her ears, it makes Quinn look down at Rachel in a strange new light. A forboding feeling rings through her mind like the bells of her church, chiming in a brassy reminder that Rachel isn't exactly normal.

The moment they are outside, a cold front collapses into them like a tidal wave and leaves them shivering. The sun has dipped below the horizon and left the day in an inky darkness.

Rachel walks ahead, comes out of reach from Quinn's guiding fingertips, and seems to walk straight into a wall of darkness. Expecting something to be said, Quinn waits and scuffs her feet against the harsh gravel and listens to the faint sounds of Rachel's restless footsteps walking around her.

Within moments, the girls are submerged into an inky, thick silence that opens the world up for different senses. All that can be heard is the soft crunch of gravel and the whistle of the wind.

What can be seen is only the small bulb of yellow light from the streetlight across the street and the soft, wispy vapor of the girls' breath in the frigid night. What can be felt is near to nothing as the chilly night air has made each movement stiff and disjointed and each limb numb with a cold soreness; the only thing safe from the wintry weather is held delicately beneath the breast of each girl and pounds a little harder with each shared breath.

Rachel has disappeared into the darkness, leaving only her shadow before Quinn's eyes. And those bright, chocolate eyes have been covered by the dark blanket of night and cuts the last string controlling Quinn a marionette. It leaves her alone with herself and suffocates the warm spell that had made her heart pulse so pathetically in ecstasy.

With each passing moment, the warmth recedes from her fingertips, lips, and toes and starts the slow, torturous crawl to its cold cage at the center of her chest.

"Quinn! Dinner," Russell calls from inside the house and breaks the silent spell between them.

"Bye Rachel" Quinn murmurs desolately and turns away from the shadow's excited wave.

She walks towards the faint light of the house and begins to feel her mind collect itself once again. With each step away from Rachel, her mind slowly steps back into its previous setting. And by the time she's back in her house, her skin crawls with the scalding memory of the warmth Rachel had pressed on her and her mind recoils skittishly.

Her mind was like a long line of ants following the routine of a straight line and Rachel was the disastrous leaf collapsing on the regulated road. Disorienting, yes, but eventually she would collect and skid around the interference and back into the straight and calculated line.


~~X~~

Santana sits against an oak tree, biting her lips in concentration as she rolls a small, blood red apple in her palms.

The angel sit cross-legged across from her, gazing intently at the luscious red apple.

It's hard to say how long they've been doing this since there is no sense of time here. There was really only a beginning and an end to the day, both of them emphasized by the blazing ring of bells. But she'd guess that it's been a few hours since she's first met the angel by the way the sun's begun to creep towards the horizon.

There is one thing that she can tell is that she and the blonde hit it off straight from the start.

Sure, there was that awkward transition moment of Oh shit, you're not human and where the fuck am I? But once they had jumped over that hurdle, everything became smooth and easy. With a twitch of her wrist, the apple flings into the air and within a blink of an eye, its gone, seemingly to have disappeared from thin air.

The blonde plops down next to Santana with the apple in her hands and a wide grin; with a sigh, she stretches her wings proudly and Santana watches as each feather gleams like little mirrors twinkling in the sun.

"Wow" Santana murmurs in awe, it's her only response, and its been the only response she's had all day.

Santana can't help but catch the smallest of details as she watches the angel bite into the apple. Like the way her brilliant teeth make little imprints on the red flesh, followed by a delicious crunch, and the way she pouts her lips to keep the juice from dribbling down her chin all the while those blue eyes dazzle like two sparkling sapphires. The angel quickly wipes the apple clean with the cloth of her white dress and throws it to Santana once again.

Without another word, Santana throws the apple again and watches as the angel disappears into a white flash and plops down with another bite on the apple. When the angel sits down beside her Santana notices the slight change in atmosphere. A deep ringing sound fills the air and Santana raises her head to the sound.

It rings once...twice...a third time...and then the world collapses into an eerie silence as the round vibration of sound dies around it. The angel throws the apple to the side and wipes her hands together as she begins to skip away.

Santana watches stiffly, unsure of what to do. She's heard the bells before she met the angel, but she always figured it was some kind of war cry and had lunged up a tree at the sound. But here was this angel, skipping away towards the sound and leaving the "hostile human" alone.

The angel goes about ten feet away from her before stopping, and then she flexes her wings and turns towards Santana with a cocked hip and quirked head.

"Aren't you coming?"

"Mm, no" She hums while the angel covers her mouth in a barely hidden giggle and skips back to Santana.

With a sigh, she grabs Santana's arm, and begins dragging her to what Santana believes to be certain doom. With this thought ringing clearly in her head, she tries to remain as heavy of a dead weight that she can be and insists that she will stay here under the oak tree, but the angel is persistent in her dragging.

This is especially awkward since she is still skipping, which only ends with Santana's arm being almost ripped from her sockets with each joyful drag. Eventually, Santana forces herself to walk along with the angel since she is too pretty to be armless. "Will you at least tell me what we are doing?"

"Sleeping of course. That was the calignosity bell! It's bed-time" She sing-songs and points to the canopy of trees where they had eaten soup. Angels collect like swarms of bees and darken the sky with their wings. Shit. An odd panicked shiver runs up her spine and she feels like running away screaming. But she bites her lip and chooses to look at the nice angel who doesn't hate her instead.

"No way in Hell am I going to be in the middle of that"

The angel frowns and looks back towards the sleeping area.

"Why?" She asks simply, as if she really doesn't see the collection of beasts who all despise her and probably wanted to scratch her eyes out while she slept. How could she understand? She was one of them.

"Because they all hate me and I would like to stay alive for at least another two years or so"
She had a quota of finishing High school before she started making reckless and irreversible decisions like joining a gang. Which is something easily offered to her in Lima Heights Adjacent.

"Please, they don't hate you!" The angel sighs and Santana stares. "We don't hate anyone," She says more softly

"Except me. Who they want to kill"

"They just have to get used to you" She says finally and starts dragging Santana again.

Everybody was already lying down by the time the angel had dragged Santana to the proper spot.

Since the sun had receded beneath the hills, the only thing that could be seen were the flashing wings and reflective eyes. The rest was left to Santana's imagination as they lay collected on the floor.

The angel steps in front of her, or maybe Santana hides behind her but she'd like to pretend that it's the other way around, and they slowly make their way towards the group.

Abject fear coils up within her when they notice her because as if on cue, the relaxed wings stiffen and all at once what feels like one hundred pairs of eyes stare at her through the darkness. But they don't lunge at her as she'd expected, they must be too tired to be willing to disturb their sleeping habits and rip her apart.

But each pair of eyes follow them, or should she say her, as her friendly angel finds her an empty bed of leaves. Excellent. Why sleep safely at her oak tree when she could sleep on leaves with a bunch of monsters? Thank you, mysterious-blonde-angel-who-still-has-no-name. Maybe this was all a part of a plan.

Gulping, she lets the angel pull at her wrist and guide her down into a lying position. The eyes continue to watch her as she lies down so she directs her eyes towards the sky. The angel lays a gentle head on Santana's chest and tightens her hold over Santana's mid-section. The angel sighs and Santana feels her ears grow hot when the girl's restless fingers begin stroking the skin of her forearm.

"Rachel and I used to sleep like this, staring up at the stars and making little designs in the sky" The angel murmurs softly and dispersing any kind of uncomfortably snarky reply from Santana's lips. Smiling, she raises a hand and pats her angel's head endearingly. "Do you think Rachel is safe?"

Hell no, that world is a ship going under and Rachel is on the bottom floor, trapped beneath the debris of the popular kid's sadistic pecking order.

"She wasn't hurt the last time I saw her," Santana murmurs instead, not really having the heart to lie to her completely.

Gradually, the tension of the angels around her wears off with the safe, warm feeling of her friendly angel snuggling with her and what must be a million stars swirling overhead. "There are so many stars," She says without thinking and cringes. Of course there are a lot of stars, you dumbass, it's the sky!

But her angel doesn't laugh or snark like expected, she simply moves her head so that they are both staring out at the night in front of them.
"Are there less stars where you live?" She asks innocently, her voice is so sweet and soft that Santana lets herself believe that she isn't being ridiculed.

"No, you just can't see them as well"

"Why?"

"The sky is just so full of shit, you can't see anything anymore" She sighs

"Oh," The girl says in a monotonic tone, most likely confused again. But no questions are asked, unless anybody would like to count: "How could anybody let their people poop into the sky?" as a question. Which she doesn't.

The two girls are plunged into a comfortable silence as Santana's mind begins to haze over with sleep. Her eyelids droop and she can feel her friend curl around her in a final position of sleep. And despite having slept with almost the entire school and even forcing some bittersweet affection from Quinn, she knows in this moment that she's never felt so warm before.

So cared for...and almost safe, if she could ignore the hundreds of winged creatures around her. At the feeling, an odd desire begins to eat at her brain, and making her nerves twitch with a need for to fulfill this desire.

"Can I give you a name?" She murmurs, and forces her eyes from the sky and onto the messy bed of blonde hair at her chest. A blonde strand tickles her lip as her angel moves slightly and rests her chin so that she is staring up at Santana with wide eyes.

But all that can really be seen are her round, dark pupils flashing back at her. The look reminds of her of the angels that surround her, the angels that she fears, and Santana knows that she had somehow created this girl into a completely different species than the others. Perhaps, not so subconsciously, she knows that she wants to name this girl so badly because of a selfish desire to keep her separated from the winged creatures that terrify her.
Silently, she hopes that the angel can't hear how impossibly fast her heart is beating.

The angel breathes a soft "why?" into the cloth of Santana's uniform, her head growing increasingly heavy with her drooping eyelids.
Santana's lips twitch and she glances back up towards the sky, hoping to find something to calm her once again; she finds herself watching the dark sky swirl with stars of different colors. Blue, white, yellow, all of them shimmer with a pure sincerity.

There are no planes to trick her with a seemingly beautiful shimmer, only to flash with sudden red lights and glide away in the night sky. And with the innocence of the pure night sky, Santana finds the right words forming themselves on her tongue.

"Because everybody should have a name,"

The answer is whispered so softly that it feels almost foreign as it breathes past her lips while only a few feet away an angel shivers in disgust. Movement surrounds them as angels turn over in their bed of leaves to tune them out, but her angel doesn't seem too upset. She tugs her lower lip between her teeth in consideration before gently nodding with another soft "okay".

There are a few more scoffs and scuffles but Santana just rolls her eyes and pays attention to this innocent soul cradled close to her.

In all honesty, she doesn't have to think so hard about what to name this girl. The name had come to her with such strength and promise that it could have been written out in bold letters on the angel's forehead.

"Brittany" She murmurs and hears the angel cuddle in close to her as she nods in approval.

With that, the aching desire ebbs from her mind again and leaves her muscles loose and mind relaxed, within moments of sleep. Smiling, she lets the name roll off her tongue in a whisper as her eyelids flutter closed.

"Brittany"


~~ X ~~

The faint pitter-patter of rain hits against the sidewalk, making Rachel's black shoes squeak as she walks to school, the shiny material gleaming in contrast to the gray cement.

The edges of her lips twitch upwards every now and then as her mind delves and swathes in the images from last night. Her body trembles with an excited energy for today and every day after it. She was feeling fantastic because not only has she finally dispelled all those confusing pains and worries of the human world, but she'd also completed her first and foremost mission of befriending Quinn Fabray.

Rachel can't wait to talk to Quinn again, see her, or maybe she'll just smile and wave.

Rachel can't remember a time when she was more excited for something, except maybe for going into the human world. Her extra clothes and showering supplies lay bundled up in her arms and she holds them close to her chest, holding it as some students may grasp their binder.

Walking up the front steps, she sees Noah leaning against the wall, glancing disinteresting at the students passing by. Every now and then, he would smirk and raise an arm for a hearty slap on the palm another student's hand, and of course would close one eye to a passing girl. A slap and a wink; Rachel found it all very interesting.

The seemingly violent and uncertain actions of these humans were viewed as playful and kind.

Rachel smiles a little wider and walks up to Noah, making sure to wave politely at the jocks around her who stop and stare at her. The mass of boys shift around her like a receding ocean, adjusting to her every move and making sure to never brush shoulders with her.

"Hello Noah!" She chirps and brushes through the space given to her, oblivious to the jocks that maneuver around her uneasily, their dark eyes flashing, and lips flattening like those of an angered dog.

Noah glances to her with wide eyes and then to the boys around him. A muscle in his neck tightens and his temples bulge from the tight clenching of his jaw. But all of this lasts only a moment, and before Rachel can blink again, an aloof smile replaces everything else and a nonchalant looseness overcomes his form.

"I got this guys" He growls and saunters over to Rachel. The boys behind him bump against one another as they watch with dark eyes. Rachel buzzes with excitement and thinks of giving him a welcome hug, since the previous one with Quinn was so successful. But just as he gets close enough to receive one, he grabs her wrist and throws her over his shoulder. Rachel gasps as she teeters on Noah's shoulder precariously.

The ground beneath her wavers with each unsteady step as Noah carries her away.
An open garbage can veers into view and Rachel yelps, kicking her legs and flailing her arms pathetically. She remembers the last time with all those horrid smells compiled with precariously thrown boys beside her; it was absolutely traumatizing. As he swings her up into the air, she closes her eyes tightly and waits for the impact of the smelly can of garbage.

Instead, her feet meet the ground uncertainly as Noah puts her down on the ground. Rachel stumbles, wildly off balance, and throws her hands out for something to steady her. Her wings stretch and flitter within her cautiously, fluttering just beneath her skin like a comforting heartbeat. She feels a warm object under her hands and quickly sinks her nails into it.

"Hey!"

Rachel's eyes flash open and she finds Noah's irritable expression and outstretched arm, and then sees her nails grasped onto the bare flesh. Instinct drives her to rip her nails away and her stomach flips with the show of violence but she can feel a twisting heat of anger rearing up.

"What in the world are you doing?"

Noah rubs his arm and looks through half closed lids over the garbage can. Ever impatient, Rachel soon peeks her head up and looks over to where he stares and sees nothing.

The images soon click together and notices that the boys could not see them from behind this trash can. "Hmm," She leans back and feels a collapsing pain constrict in her chest. "I see" She murmurs and morphs her lips into a straight line.

"Hey, don't look at me like that. You should be thanking me right now, I just saved your life" He says and makes himself stand a little higher. Rachel glances to the garbage can and slowly rolls her eyes back to Noah.

"You moved me, rather unceremonially if I may add, to a garbage can. Why should I be pleased by this?' She murmurs, feeling rather glum. Or, at least, as glum as her emotions will allow. To be honest, she does feel a bit better that he didn't outright tell her that he was embarrassed to be around her.

"Because Berry, you are on the blacklist! Anyone else would have actually thrown you into the trash." He says and smirks coquettishly at her. She sighs, dips her head, and shakes it slowly from side to side.

With a small, incredulous laugh, she feels her inverted wings dip and shudder with obvious disappointment. Noah shifts beside her and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Look, I don't like this whole blacklist thing either but it's a dog-eat-dog world and the Puckasaurus ain't gonna let himself be thrown in a trash can"

Rachel cringes with disgust. Do dogs really eat other dogs in this world? Who would let something like this occur? When she doesn't answer back, Noah sighs and shoves off his backpack. "Fine, here, take this" He mumbles and Rachel glances up to see the leather bound bag in his hand. "It'll do you good to hide all that shit you carry around in your arms," He murmurs sincerely. "It's not like I use it anyway."

Humming again, she levels him with a long and steady stare. He was rather...what is the word? Egotistical? Yes, but more than that. Mean, yes that was the word. Noah was mean.

Rachel pursed her lips and gently raised her hand to accept the bag, finding it easier to smile after she reassembled her clothing into the empty bag. It was rather handy, she supposes. Noah smiles back, his dark eyes shining genuinely and Rachel feels herself softening again, the buttery warmth she was used to feeling filled her chest again.

She pressed her lips tighter and swallowed down her new revelation about Noah Puckerman, feeling as though it didn't matter either way. She was starting to think that it was just a part of them. Maybe these humans were born with the aptitude of malice, and to blame them for it would be as unkind as it was for them to have use it. They didn't know how to live without it.

The bag feels light in her arms and she picks at the zipper. She watches the metal teeth close together and her clothes disappear inside the threaded black bag, the interlocked teeth glimmer as they interlock. She smiles up at Noah when he gently helps hoist the strap upon her shoulder, taking a small step back and adorning an even smaller smile.

"Thank you" She murmurs quietly and shyly puts her thumbs through the buckled black straps. She looks more human as the days go by, and she can't help but smile a little bit at the thought.

The backpack feels odd on her back and she can feel her wings press against it in attempt to get the weight off, but she holds the straps tighter against her and soon they settle back into complacency. The whole blacklist thing was on her mind and she wanted to ask Noah about it, but she's pretty sure she'll just get the same answer she's gotten every other time. No need to know about it, just know that you need to get off it.

"Hey Noah?"

Noah doesn't look at her; actually, it seems as if her voice never even registered; he doesn't even blink. His attention has drifted away from her as clearly as if he had gotten up and walked away. Rachel cocks her head to the side and appraises her friend. Although he stands facing her, his shoulders are twisted away and he leans gently towards the quad.

His hands wring together slightly and his head is jerked up high, as if he were subtly trying to catch someone's attention by being miraculously taller. And his dark eyes are wide and almost innocent, resembling the tragic scene of a lost puppy.
"Noah?" Rachel says again, but Noah still doesn't answer. Sighing, Rachel steps up and imitates his position, as if mirroring him would help her see what he was seeing.
Following Noah's gaze, Rachel's eyes jump up the rain-splattered cement and towards the end of the quad. A herd of Cheerios moved across the school grounds.

Despite there being a large group of people standing hunched together, it was rather obvious to see whom Noah was gawking at. Because standing in the eye of the Cheerio storm is Quinn Fabray. Although her average height and common blonde hair is rather standard in the group, she harbors the ability to pull everyone's eyes to her, as if underneath her skin she were a magnet and everyone were made of metal. She stands alone in a serene silence while the groups of jabbering Cheerios fill in around her like a ring. None of them breaks in to talk to her and she doesn't turn to talk to them. It was a lonely and magnificent sight and almost immediately Rachel's heart thumps noisily against her chest at the sight.

"Noah" She whispers, "Why are you staring at Quinn?" Noah blinks slowly; his eyelashes moving in a dark flutter before he moves his head and breaks his dazed trance.

He stares at Rachel for a moment longer, his dark eyes boring into hers.

"You think I'm a stud, right Rachel?" He asks, driving the topic of conversation completely off subject. Rachel chews on her lip as she regards him carefully; he looked like a human to her, but perhaps this 'stud' was a good thing to be labeled as.

Rachel took a guess and smiled brightly, answering with her usual warm voice, "Of course you are!" Noah smiles a little at her grand gesture and Rachel felt a warm bloom of accomplishment in her chest.

"Yeah..." He murmurs and looks back over to Quinn, "Quinn doesn't seem to think so. She thinks I'm some Lima Loser, which is ironic since she's dating the king of Losertown." He says angrily, although, something in his voice makes the anger seem false, makes it seem almost sad.

It breaks a cold chill across her skin and makes her stomach churn. Rachel's head moves without command to stare at Quinn, the two of them watching her with mimicked expressions. Noah continues with a sigh, "Finn is such an idiot and she's so hot, I doubt he even knows what to do with her…" He trails off wistfully, pocketing his hands into his jeans and hooking his thumbs out awkwardly.

He sighs and Rachel nods silently, feeling her hands grow clammy with awkwardness; she considers herself an extremely intelligent person but if there was one excessively gray area in her intelligence, it is in the human practice of boy friends and girl friends.

The elders always skipped that section in education and warned them that such information was unnecessary and only caused problems in the past. Rachel, being the good student and listener, was sure to obey her Elder's warning.

"And the good Lord knows I want to get into her pants" He grumbles almost as an afterthought. Rachel's brow furrow in confusion and shoots a startled look towards her friend.

"But she's wearing a skirt." Rachel says incredulously, her eyes flickering over Noah's pants – they were a dull black and dusted with gray, but they appeared fitting on him – Rachel wasn't sure why he would want Quinn's pants, or her skirt for that matter. Noah blinks and tilted his head to stare at Rachel for a moment or two, his lips curling into a larger smile. With a warm chuckle, he thumps her on the back.

"You're funny Berry" He laughs again and throws his arm around her shoulder, the unintentional joke seems to puff up his confidence again because he stands a little straighter and holds his cocky smirk to his lips. "Listen, I like Finn...He's my bro and he's perfect with all that emotional relationship crap, but those skirts are crunchy toast and the Puckster gets what he wants" He says just as the front row of Cheerios begin to do twirls and high kicks. "And what the Puckster wants is Quinn Fabray in his bed." Rachel's eyes widen and a flush of warmth pool into her cheeks. She knew what that meant. Her breath came out oddly hitched and unstable, her stomach twisting inside – which was a curious matter since she's sure she had breakfast this morning.

"Oh...I-I'm sorry." Rachel says uncertainly, sounding more like a question than any comfort she was meant to bring. Her blush burns her cheeks until Noah glances down at her and cocks his head to the side with a slight smile.

"Aw, you're blushing" He leans down and puts his hand under her chin, causing a violent ticklish feeling right where his fingers brush her skin.

Yelping, she knocks herself onto the wall wildly with interspersed gasps, giggles, and screams. "Jeez, you're ticklish" He says and backs up with his hands up over his head.

"I-I-yes, yes I am," She gasps against the painful feeling of her wings stretching against her skin. It felt like her back was a flimsy piece of elastic keeping back a load of bricks. It kept stretching and just barely holding them back before their restlessness settled down again. It wouldn't keep up for much longer, not only did she not like feeling cramped like this, but it was also physically and emotionally draining to keep such an intimate part of herself hidden away.

"Oh, hey! Look, Quinn's looking over here...You think she's looking at me?" He chatters like an excited bird and throws his arm around Rachel so that her head nuzzled into his chest. It was okay, kind of overwhelming...but not unpleasant...not as good as it had been hugging Quinn.

It takes a little longer to find Quinn again the second time, especially since her face now presses against Noah's warm chest, but Rachel finds her amongst the hoards of Cheerios and Jocks. She is standing somewhat aimlessly, like she didn't know why she was standing there or how to move away.

The tips of her white tennis shoes touched one another as her feet turned inwards almost shyly; and her arms droop from their position on her hips until they were hanging loosely at her sides.

But it was her face that really caught Rachel's attention; pink lips were parted slightly, as if wanting to form words bursting from a stubborn tongue, and her eyes, though so far away, were directed at a certain direction. Those eyes with green and gold swirling in the middle, were not focused on Noah Puckerman but instead bored straight into Rachel.

Rachel spares a glance to Noah, sees a mysterious smile on his lips and an almost modest gleam to his eyes, and knew that he could see the same girl Rachel was seeing. An odd collapsing pain collects in her chest and she throws a fisted hand against her chest to stop her heart's wild palpitations. "Do you think I have a chance with her?" He asks deeply as if his pride were weighing down his voice.

"Yeah, sure you do" Rachel says with a hum, and offers a small smile to Quinn, who immediately ducks her head and turns away. But for the small flash of a second, Rachel could see those pink lips stretching upwards.

Within that moment, there is a slight disturbance in the crowd. The Cheerios step back and a group of sturdy boys step up in their jackets of red and white, each and every one of them holding grim expressions and slushie filled cups.

"Well shit" Noah sighs and spits on the ground, causing one Jock to smirk as the wall lumbers towards them. "This is what I get for hanging out with you," He sighs and brushes in front of Rachel, hiding her. "These shit-head bastards are quick" He laughs and turns back to her, a small crooked smile quirking on his lips, and almost nervously, he runs a hand down his black mowhawk. Rachel peeks out from under his arms to the gathering group of Jocks and Cheerleaders, forming an almost imperceptive wall. Dread bubbles and hardens like burned sugar at the bottom of her stomach. "You might as well hide behind me, it won't stop all of the slushies but it'll stop the majority" He sighs again and dips his head. "Shit"

"I don't understand," She whispers into his shoulder. Quinn is her friend. She sighs and her cheek presses hard against his back as her eyes stare at the lined fabric of his jacket instead of the upcoming cups of humiliation and stinging syrup.

"This is how it is Berry, you're up one day feelin' like a celebrity and the next you're sitting in the grime like the others, for no explanation at all. It's just how the game goes," He says as the Jock throws the first slushie.


~~ X ~

She looks different"

"Shh...Be quiet, or she'll kill us"

"But she doesn't look how they do in the stories..."

"Do you think that will make any difference?"

"Are you sure she's human?"

"Stay back! She's dangerous, remember?"

"Shh…"

Brittany sighs and runs a gentle hand through the soft, silky heads of the young angels that have surrounded her. One by one, the curious whispers stop and their heads turn gently away from the sleeping human and towards her.

Brittany smiles softly as her hand stops at a particularly delicate girl and runs her fingertips down the locks of blonde hair, down the simple, pale eyes, and button nose until they rest at her round chin. Giving a gentle squeeze, she watches as the angel responds with a toothy grin, her lips curling differently than the others…as if it took an extra effort to do such a simple task.

Each child has their attention on Brittany now and it allows a breathy sigh from Santana to go unnoticed.

"She's homesick, and scared," She murmurs and the children cock their heads, their dark veins flashing with fragility as they pulse so close to the surface. "Imagine if you were in her situation"

"We'd be dead" The blonde angel slurs and Brittany squeezes her chin again as she feels her heart sputter at the thought of Rachel alone in that cold world right now.

"We can't be sure of that" She murmurs and pinches an angel's nose, making them giggle softly. Their shoulders have loosened since they've turned away from the human and they now sit on their knees with their hands on their thighs as they look up to her expectantly. The children look up to her, and not just because she's tall, but because they can relate to her.

She's the oldest and biggest kid they know, they will listen to what she has to say. "Think of our dearest fallen angel, stuck in the human world at this very moment. Think of her and treat this human how you wish Rachel to be treated" She says finally and stares at each pair of eyes until she can see understanding flicker in each of them.

If only the adults could be as easily persuaded as these children, but their memories are stronger and they've had more time for the nightmares to compact in their minds…And the Elders…Well, Brittany fears that they shall never be convinced with their facts to tightly wound up with their fear.

Quietly, they turn back towards Santana and stare solemnly for a moment until the little blonde angel crawls from Brittany's kind grasp and towards the human. The damp soil dips softly as she leans her knees into its soft surface and sits beside Santana. The angels around her hold their breaths as she rests a hand on Santana's forehead.

Everybody moves back collectively, their young eyes flashing with fear as the girl goes closer than anybody could imagine coming to a human. Her short fingers jump slightly as Santana moves, as if surprised by the life thrumming in the body of their nightmares.

Five little fingers move along the slight forehead like little legs as she brushes a strand of raven black hair from her face. As the angel examines, the world grows silent around them. Even the birds stop their continuous song long enough to watch the scene above them before bobbing around on their perch and flittering away.

The tiny blonde lets both hands touch the human's face now as the human's compliance allows her confidence to build. Her eyebrows knit together with concentration as her fingertips brush against the thin eyebrows, twitching pink lips, and the soft spot of her temple where a little blue vein pulses.

Finally, she pulls back and turns towards Brittany and the other angels. An awestruck expression is sketched across her face and registers in those glassy eyes.

"She's just like us"

At hearing this, the rest of the children surge forward. Each one of them wanting to claim their own discoveries with the unconsious human.

With the extra hands prodding her, Santana convulses violently into awareness. Lashing her arms about and swinging her legs, she sits up and jumps back a few feet from the angels. Her dark eyes are nearly black and her face flushes from the sudden jump from peaceful sleep into a stressed survival mode.

But the children are not deterred by her sudden movements. They are immune to the fear that plagues the adults and crawls towards her eagerly.

"Stop! Stop it" Santana yelps and stumbles back as greedy hands prod and poke at her face.

"Santana! I told you that they'd like you! Just gotta give them a chance!" Brittany yells into the mass of wings and sees Santana's face between the flapping feathers, contorted with shock and fear.

"Make them hate me again," She groans as one angel cuddles into her side and throws their arms around her.


~~ X ~~

Whoosh

The cold water makes Rachel's ears pop as she holds her head under the sink. As the blood begins to collect in her head from being upside down too long, she listens to the whoosh of the water and replaces it with the bitter sneers of the Jocks.

It's obvious what the slushie had meant. The intention was dispersed subtly through the eyes of each Jock. Although the bodies had created a wall to cover the true person behind the attack it was obvious that it was no one other than Quinn's persuasion that had caused the slushie facial. It was Quinn's impersonalized way of saying that not only did yesterday never happen but that we are not and never will be friends.

It's surprising how much she's absorbed over these few short weeks of being in the human world. She never expected to understand any of their actions, but it must have seeped into her mind somehow and has now just awakened by the cold slap of slushy ice. Her thoughts and theories lay on every inch of her mind, color coded, organized, and ready to be investigated.

And now that she has time to magnify each word with her mind's eye and analyze each action, it all makes sense now. She's strewn apart every piece of Quinn until she was bare and put her back together again and feels a cold feeling of satisfaction in knowing that there is no more mystery in the girl. Rachel's drained every inky drop of the curious darkness within Quinn and has left her dry and shallow.

Quinn is fake; at a young age she decided that the person that she used to be was inadequate and threw her out without a second glance. The person everybody sees now is a mirage of the desires and expectations others had molded her into. Her every action is made from a plan she had devised early in life and every one around her is a part of the plan.

Finn softens her image and sweetens people's view of them, Santana was some sort of bodyguard who kept people away, Puck was a replacement to both keep close and at a distance, and Rachel…She doesn't know what she is in Quinn's mind yet. But her heavy heart tortures her and whispers in broken little thumps that she is an enemy.

"You've been in there too long" A soft, husky voice reaches Rachel's ears and she jerks up and manages to hit her head against the faucet. Groaning, she holds her head and stands up slowly, making sure that there were no objects to hurt her head any further on the way. The voice is right; her head feels fuzzy and throbs with its own pulse at her temples. Before having fully recovered from being upside down too long, she responds.

"Yes, well…Washing the hair is a crucial part to cleaning up a slushie facial and if not done adequately it will be sticky for the entire day," she says this and turns around to meet the voice. Immediately, she flinches and turns towards the counter once again, distracting herself by rummaging through her backpack.

Rachel waits for another attack, for another rant about how she and Rachel could never be friends, or even a demand for Rachel to stay away from Finn. But Quinn just stands there and eventually Rachel goes back to cleaning up.

She gets almost completely changed before Quinn tries to catch her attention again. It's as she is pulling her new argyle sweater over her head when she notices that Quinn is not where Rachel last saw her.

Quinn has swooped in closer and waits for Rachel to come away with free hands. The moment Rachel pulls down the sweater; she sees a wrapped candy bar on the counter in front of her. Two elegantly long fingers are pressed gently into the candy bar and pushes it down the counter towards Rachel.

Rachel's eyebrows knit together as the candy bar scratches and crawls its way towards her and glances back to Quinn.

Quinn is biting her lip shyly as she keeps her eyes focused on moving the candy bar. Rachel takes the bar and turns it over in her hand, feeling a familiar rush of power at the sound of Quinn's soft breath.

It was like holding that old stuffed animal, as if the kind gesture was an intimate part of Quinn, like a soft spot in her armor.

No, no that isn't right because Quinn doesn't care about her.

Biting her lip, she runs the candy bar over her hands and thinks about what to do with it. For an awful moment, she considers throwing it into the trash just to see if Quinn would feel the same cold slap of rejection that has been thrust upon Rachel time and time again. But she bites the urge down and chases it down into a cage somewhere deep inside of herself. It was a human impulse and an extremely dangerous one at that.

"Just in case you forget to eat again" Quinn husks and probes Rachel's expression for any traceable sign of affection or appreciation.

After a moment of Rachel staring blankly at Quinn through the mirror, her eyes lower and she steps away and trains her expression to look cool and detached once again. "Well, that's it…I figured the Glee club couldn't survive if you were passing out every other day" She says and seems to cringe at her own words. Rachel feels her eyebrows raise, surprise sparkling in her chest from the curious way Quinn is acting.

Mystery starts to blur her shape again, and when Quinn shakes her head and spins around to leave, she steals the clear-cut definition of herself on the way out. Quinn's form dips back into the black night of mystery and everything becomes blurry again.

The faucet drips every few seconds and harmonizes with the fading steps of Quinn's retreating form. Rachel stares at the letters of the bar for a moment before putting it down onto the bag and leaning onto the counter.

She stares out in front of her for a long time and tries to decipher what this all means and how to define Quinn.

But it's no use, her mind is frazzled by what had just happened; but she knows that she will most likely have to start from scratch, or at least something close to that.

Tipping her head back, she stares at the ceiling and feels her heart jump onto confused rhythms of disjointed palpitations. After another second and three little drips onto the counter Rachel lets herself release the long breath she had been unconsciously holding.

And with the dispersing breath, she feels relief dislodge from the tensions within her and spews it out into the room with another sigh until the relief fills every inch of the room.


~~ X ~~

The auditorium seat feels wonderful against Quinn's aching back and she rolls her neck back and lets her eyelids droop with the soothing darkness of the dimmed lights. So nice compared to the constant vibrancy of the Cheerio uniforms kicking and jumping around her.

Like the gentle cradle of a rocking mother, Quinn rolls her chair back and forth into a rocking rhythm until her chest is thrumming with a synthetic and self-induced comfort. Tapping her fingers against each seat, she waits for the spotlight to flash on at the stage.

When it does, she can see Rachel stroll up to the front of the stage with those passionate eyes and brilliant smile. It is so uncommon for anybody other than Rachel to sing anymore, and for anybody on the club Quinn is sure that this fact is devastating to them. But sheprefers it.

Finn lumbers up beside Rachel and taps her other shoulder in a goofy charm that seems to both startle and enthrall Rachel immediately. She gives an open-mouthed smile and turns around dramatically as if she were trying to chase her own tail, and giggles to Finn.

Quinn narrows her eyes, scowls at the boy before she remembers that the boy is her boyfriend, and is supposed to hold a special place in her heart. Quickly, she trains her features and sits back to appreciate her boyfriend's boyish quirkiness.

It is this exact foolish ridiculousness that Quinn tries to hard to control within herself. She doesn't doubt for one moment that if she let herself slip as much as Rachel's presence allows her too, then she herself would be prancing on that stage like a Neanderthal and poking at Rachel's sides.
Oops, there's that bitterness again.

Sighing, she licks her lips, forces her thoughts from delving into the deep, dark corners of her mind, and focuses on trivial things like Rachel's ugly sweaters. Honestly, how stupid was she to let Finn buy Rachel clothes? And now of course Rachel adores them...The skirts aren't too bad though. Quinn cocks her head and examines the designed fabric that seems to cut off so quickly.

"Alright Rachel, what would you like to sing for us now?" Mr. Shue sighs tiredly, seeming to have mixed feelings about letting Rachel into the club.
"Another solo for Miss Rachel Berry, surprise, surprise" someone sighs and another one cackles.

The voices belong to either Kurt or Mercedes obviously; she has never cared to differentiate the two of them. Usually, they just recycle the same snarky comments until eventually they just kind of melted together into one person in her mind.

Rachel beams, oblivious to the blatant contempt being thrown at her.

"Thank you, Mr. Shuester. I would like to start off with a song I have only recently discovered that I find particularly fantastic and would like to share with all of you. Forgive me for I may be a little bit rusty, since I've only just heard the song," She somehow says in one breath and flashes a Broadway smile to the depressed club in front of her.

"Rusty, right, as if we are going to believe that. Just admit you're a diva who loves the sound of he own voice! We'll get along better!" One voice begins and the other finishes with a snickering quip of "No we won't"

Despite the comments, Rachel centers herself at the stage and only glances up once she's prepared. And when she does finally look at them, it's only to throw them a bright smile and quick wave before the music begins.

The auditorium falls into almost complete silence and everything but the spotlight on Rachel dims. Rachel licks her lips as the music begins to build, her hands clenching and unclenching in a subtle fit of anxiety. Taking a deep breath, Rachel seems to fall into a completely different world away from snickering divas, blinding lights, and Mr. Shue's hairspray toxins. Her dark eyes find their way to the end of the auditorium, as if searching for somebody in the back of the room.

Quinn gulps and slinks low in her seat, but it's useless.

Chocolate eyes have locked on and Quinn finds herself helpless to their magnetic pull. Quinn is under Rachel's spell and the only muscle within her able to move jumps into her throat in heartbreaking joy.

"Dear friend, as you know your flowers are withering..." the voice begins and Quinn's eyelids immediately flutter. Just like every other time, she feels herself overcome with the power of Rachel's voice and feels her body tremble under the force of its passionate electricity. Her skin bubbles up like blisters into gooseflesh and her the sensitive hairs on her neck and arm stick up like before.

"Your mother's gone insane, your leaves have drifted away...But the clouds are clearing up,
and I've come reveling. But incandescently, like a bastard on the burning sea..."

At the faintest break in the song, Quinn's lips twitch upwards and she closes her eyes fully and lets herself get swept up with the surreal waves threatening to blow her away.

"You're just like you're father, buried deep under the water. You're resting on your laurels and stepping on my toes..."
Something about the lyrics feels somewhat familiar...She knows she's heard this song before, but it just feels...different. Her heart slowly climbs down from her throat and seems to pump with a slow trepidation.

"Whose side are you on? What side is this anyway? Put down your sword and crown...Come lay with me on the ground,"

Quinn's eyelids flash open at the lyrics and she finds Finn and Rachel dancing together. One-step forward, two steps back, side step, side step. Finn has his head tilted down and a little smirk tilting his lips, but Rachel isn't looking at him. Her eyes are still locked onto the shadow that is supposed to be concealing her presence. Can Rachel see through it?

"You come beating like moth's wings, spastic and violent, whipping me into a storm. Shaking me down to the core...But you run away from me"
Rachel throws herself into this last sentence, forcing Quinn to feel every rise and fall of urgency in her voice, and it makes her feel sweaty and anxious.

"And you left me shimmering, like diamond wedding rings spinning dizzily on the floor"

The club leaves once Rachel finishes her song to either practice dance routines or simply go home, Quinn could care less. All her mind can focus is the painfully soft whisper of Rachel's voice during the last stanza.

The song didn't call for it but it made Quinn shiver in all ways, right and wrong.

"You're just like your father, buried deep under the water. You're resting on your laurels and stepping on my toes. Whose side are you on? What side is this anyway? Put down your sword and crown...Come lay with me on the ground..."


Woo...So tired.

Reviews = 3

yay. I know Santana is OOC. But It's AU and I'd like to imagine this is how Santana would end up without having Brittany there to lean on in her world.