Ha! this one was up faster! And I'm already writing chapter 8! Enjoy!
A few weeks passed after the party in a comfortable yet uneasy calm. Finn had finally backed off from his attempts to get Rachel back, but he still glared maliciously at James during glee rehearsals. He wasn't harmful though.
Quinn was honestly more trouble. She has enlisted the hockey team to slushy her and Santana three more times before she gave up. She then resorted to more threatening songs in glee that she couldn't pull off. Most of the time they ended up losing control and laughing at her half way through her song.
When all of that failed, she used the only weapon she apparently had left. She had quickly learned about Rachel's living situation and just as quickly spread it around the school. It looked as if she was satisfied for a short amount of time but it quickly wore off. The school muttered about the news for a couple days but then no one cared. In fact it had worked to Rachel's benefit. After Karofsky and his friends found about Rachel living with Puck they backed off. They finally got to see Puck's protective side.
Overall everything was actually okay for Rachel. Glee was fine now that everything had settled down, even if Mr. Schue was casting wary looks over his band of misfits. He occasionally glanced over at James too, as if all of this was his fault.
Rachel however brushed it off. She wasn't going to let any of Mr. Schue's negativity bring her down. She felt as if she had finally gotten everything right.
Time flew by though. About a month after the party James and his family were flying out to California to visit some family. "What am I going to do without you for a week?"
They were in his music room, and it was huge! It had all of his guitars, basses, his drums and a giant piano. It was soundproof and connected to his bedroom. "Well, you can hang out with Puck and Santana for a while before you get bored or annoyed by their constant bickering. Then I guess you'll spend time with Brittany or Mercedes and Kurt. Eventually though you'll miss so much you'll come here and sleep on the piano bench just to soak in the smell of me."
"Aww." Rachel smiled. "You'd let me do that?" She came over and sat on the bench.
"You know where the key is." He bent down to kiss her at the same time she leaned up. It didn't stop with just one kiss like many other times on the piano bench. This time however James wanted more than usual.
Still passionately making out with Rachel, he helped her to stand up with him and walked over to the door to his bedroom. This moment was to perfect let it slip by. "How about a little something to tide you over for the week?"
"I'd enjoy that," Rachel said with a smirk. She pulled him by the shirt onto his bed.
On Monday Rachel came to school with Puck, still smiling about Saturday night. "Will you stop smirking? It's creeping me out!"
Rachel rolled her eyes at her brother, still smiling. "Fine, at least tell me what it's about! Then I'll know whether or not I should be afraid to open my locker this morning."
"Oh that reminds me. Santana and I put hundreds of spiders in you locker last night." She laughed when Puck actually believed her. "Chill! I would never let Santana do that to you. Unless she went without me…"
Laughing again at Puck's worried expression she went on. "Okay, try to remember when I started smiling like this."
He thought for a moment. "Sunday morning when you came home. It was after the first time you'd spent the night at James's." He paused, waiting for her to continue the story. A moment later his face dawned with comprehension. He wasn't completely stupid. He looked furious but couldn't hide the smile beneath.
"Now you can't get mad at me because that would be hypocritical. And you also can't beat up James because… well, he's out of state."
Puck still hadn't spoken. He was trying to gather his thoughts. "I'm… happy about your first time actually. It actually meant something to you. I still haven't had that time yet."
"You will," she said confidently. "I have faith."
The school day passed by drearily. No James meant no one waiting for her between classes. No one willing to give her a quick kiss, except maybe Brittany. But he'd been right, Saturday was filling the hole. It had been perfect for Rachel. She was glad she'd saved herself for James.
After glee though, Rachel found herself cornered. She was putting sheet music away and turned to head to the parking lot and meet Puck to find Finn extremely to close to her face. "How's it going?"
She quickly ducked out from under his arm. "Fine." What was he doing?
"I was thinking that with James out of town we could hang out. Go bowling like we used to."
"Finn, I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself, but no! There is no you and I and until you realize that, I can't hang out with you, ever!"
Finn shrugged it off. "Well if you change your mind, you have my number." He walked out of the room leaving Rachel standing in shocked annoyance. Truth was she'd deleted Finn's number weeks ago.
Her phone buzzed.
Puck: You comin?
Yea I'm coming now
Finn persisted in his attempts to get Rachel to go out with him all week. Before math, after glee. She couldn't tell anyone about it though. She didn't want people freaking out and beating people up. She could take care of this herself.
Friday it went to far though. She'd evaded him before and after first hour for once. After glee he cornered her as usual with the same argument. His speeches had become more… passionate as the week went on. He held her there longer or begged more. He'd grab her hands or the sides of her face.
Friday he kept there for almost twenty minutes. "Why won't you out with me?" he screamed in her face.
"Because I have a boyfriend! Who I love! Why don't you go out with Quinn? She'd be perfectly fine using you to become prom queen!"
"I don't want to! She's not you!"
"You mean she's too easy. Pining over you is just so unattractive."
She tried to push past him but he pushed her back up against the wall, and hard.
"Ow! Finn, stop this!"
"I can't." He gave her a hard forceful kiss. She tried to push him off but he was to strong. He forced her lips open and shoved his tongue into her mouth.
She couldn't breath. She was slowly passing. Finn moved his lips to her ear. "I'm going to make you want me," he whispered, nibbling her ear.
She regained her breath and tried to squirm away but he only followed her down. He had her pinned to the ground. Returning to her lips his hands traveled down her shirt and ripped it off. Rachel was trying to scream but he was using to much force. When she tried to squirm out again, he shoved his hands against her chest, forcing her shoulders and head to ram against the hard floor. A pain shot down her spine and her head was spinning.
His hands went back down to the top of her skirt. She couldn't move she was so worn out, but she tried a final time to squirm away. Once he felt her feeble attempt to move he slammed her against the floor again.
She didn't know what happened after that. She's blacked out.
When she woke up Rachel was in a hospital bed. There were only a couple tubes in her arm and bandages were wrapped around her head. Looking over she saw her family staring at her.
Santana stepped forward first. "B, you awake?"
She nodded but stopped. It mad her head throb.
Puck was up next. "I'm so glad you actually woke sis."
Libby and Sara both nodded crying slightly.
They stared at each other for a few minutes. She was so confused though. "What happened?"
Their faces fell. Puck looked angry though. "You don't remember what Finn did to you?"
She shook her head but stopped. Her throat was really dry. "Water?"
Sara quickly grabbed the glass off the side table. Handing it to her she climbed into the bed and hugged Rachel tightly. "I thought you were dead," she choked out.
Rachel's heart clutched. Had it been that bad? "I couldn't leave you guys quite yet." She was looking past Sara at Puck though and repeated, "What happened?"
He sighed. "Mom, could take Sara to get something to eat?"
Libby nodded and picked her daughter up. She bent down and kissed Rachel. "I'm glad you're okay kiddo." Crying, she carried Sara out of the room.
Puck and Santana pulled their chairs up next to the bed. Santana looked somber, like she was also on the verge of tears. Rachel reached out and grabbed her hand. "Hey, I'm okay."
Santana shook head. "I know. It was scary though Rachel."
"What was?"
Puck stepped in. "When I found you. I don't know how everything happened, but you never came out of the school. When you didn't respond to a text I sent you, I went in looking for you. Looking in the choir room I saw Hudson standing over you, pulling up his fucking pants. I burst in there and he just froze. It only took a second for me to tackle and start punching the bastard in the face. A teacher heard the noise and came running. They immediately called an ambulance though when they saw you. You were in a small but scary looking pool of blood from all the times the bastard bashed your head against the floor."
"Wait- pulling up his pants?" Rachel was mortified. "Did he..?"
Santana gave a slight nod. She felt Rachel's hand squeeze hers tighter. She'd broken into loud painful sobs. Puck was at her side holding her at once. "Shh, Rach it's okay. The teacher called the cops and they hauled Finn away. You won't see him for a while now."
It took a while to calm Rachel down. By then her eyes were puffy and her face was bright red. "I'm so sorry B. We should've been watching him this week."
"It's okay. How could you have seen this coming? No one could've guessed it."
"But still-"
"But nothing." Rachel stared at her siblings with fierce defiance. But then her face crumpled. "Does James know?"
Puck gave her a small smile. "I called him about an hour ago and told him. He's going to kill Hudson when he gets back. Can't lie, I'm probably going to help him. But he told me tell you to hang in there and he'll have a much deeper and sympathetic conversation with you when he gets back tomorrow. I thin k he was still in shock."
"Okay, and no killing anyone!" Rachel glared at Puck. "No more violence. I'm sick of everyone beating each other up. Let the cops deal with Finn."
Puck didn't say anything so Rachel took his silence as an agreement. She slumped down, her head pounding."
"Thankfully no," Santana said. "There's some internal bruising and regular bruises, but you'll still be able to have children and stuff. The doc said you were damn lucky."
Rachel sighed. "I know I did. Thank you guys. I don't know what would've happened without you."
"You probably would've died," Santana replied simply, making Rachel laugh. But that made her head hurt.
James came to see her in the hospital the next day. He was nearly running when he entered her room. "Rachel, oh my God." He was already crawling next to her in the tiny bed. "I'm so sorry I had to leave! If I had been home this never would've happened and-"
Rachel used the common method used to shut her up on James, and she kissed him hard. God she had missed his lips. "Listen, no way is this your fault. Finn finally snapped. Something like this was bound to happen eventually, whether you were home or not."
"But if I'd been there-"
"Finn would've hurt you and we'd both be stuck in separate hospital beds."
"But-"
"James, I'm not hurt and Finn is gone and you're home. Nothing else matters."
James sighed and finally relaxed. "I'm glad you're okay." Rachel snuggled into his side. "You know, you're handling this better than I'd expected."
Rachel avoided the comment. "So how was California?"
