Trigger warning for mentions of sexual abuse.
Quinn fled like a fox with hounds on her heels.
Why had Coach Sylvester come out like that? And what had she been talking about? God, it felt just like freshman year, the coach's eyes boring into her soul. Fuck her, and fuck Rachel, that nosy busybody. All that girl's fake concern, fake righteous rage, it was going to screw Quinn over in the end. What had she been thinking, letting her get even a fraction of the amount close that she had? She hadn't realized Berry was fucking mental.
Quinn liked Mack, but it had been her fault for not fighting back, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for being a girl. It was Quinn's fault the same way, with all that happened at home. Rachel should know that. Rachel should know that it was because of them, and getting angry about it in the way that she had just didn't make any sense. It was an overreaction, and a punch to the nose to get Ritter to back off was what had needed to happen in the moment. Nothing more, nothing less.
Quinn found herself standing in front of Ms. Pillsbury's office, a place she had never set foot in, even if she had lurked outside of it a few times waiting on her favorite teacher to come out. She wrung her hands, looking up and down the hallway to see if anyone was there. Class was still in session. Quinn ducked inside Ms. P's office.
Ms. Pillsbury looked up and her deer eyes widened at the site of the pink-haired punk. "Quinn! Aren't you supposed to be in class?" Quinn shrugged one shoulder, eyes flicking towards the huge floor length windows that were where a wall should be. Without needing to ask, Ms. P stood and rounded her desk, pulling the blinds on the windows in her office. "Quinn, what's up?"
"Nothing," Quinn breathed, biting at the side of her thumb again. "Just wanted-" Quinn stopped, shaking her head.
Ms. Pillsbury nodded, gesturing towards the seat in front of her desk. "Feel free to sit down, we can just hang out here."
Quinn closed her eyes. She knew that Ms. P was trying to shrink her, trying to get her to open up. Quinn wouldn't, she couldn't, but still she found herself sitting down, putting her elbows on her knees and chewing at the skin on the side of her thumb until she tasted blood.
"Oh my goodness, Quinn!" Suddenly Ms. P was kneeling in front of her, pulling her hand away from her mouth. She cradled Quinn's hand in her own, her face taut with distress at the blood threatening to fall from Quinn's wound onto her skin. But still Ms. P held on, keeping Quinn's hand away from further injury, as if she could stomach it for Quinn's sake. Quinn wanted to protest the very notion at the top of her lungs. Quinn tried to tug away but Ms. P held on. She was stronger than Quinn had thought. "Stop that, right now. You're hurting yourself."
"It's okay, Ms. P. You don't have to worry. I wasn't doing it on purpose," Quinn whispered, curling her thumb a few times. It didn't hurt. Or maybe it did but Quinn couldn't feel it. Her mind was too busy with other things.
"It doesn't make me worry less to know that you didn't notice you were biting yourself hard enough to break the skin," Ms. Pillsbury replied, doe eyes swimming with worry.
Quinn shrugged again, letting out a dry laugh. "Distracted, I guess."
"Can I ask by what?" Quinn almost cracked an English joke, as if she was a teacher correcting Ms. Pillsbury's grammar. You can ask. But Quinn kept her mouth shut, pursing her lips and looking down at her thumb until Ms. Pillsbury sighed, letting go of Quinn's hand only long enough to go to the other side of her desk and get her disinfectant spray for cuts and a box of Band-Aids. Quinn watched with a sort of amused interest as Ms. P carefully sprayed and wiped the injury clean, then took out a bandage and wrapped it around her finger. The last person besides herself to do something like that was-
Santana, 7th grade. That fight you two had gotten into with the boy who'd called Brittany stupid. Basically uninjured, one of the boys had got in a lucky shot and split your eyebrow. Santana always had Band-Aids.
All these people wasting time on Quinn, when all she wanted was to keep her head down and survive until college. Why did this keep happening? She'd never asked for any of it, and most people took the hint. Even Santana had only been intended as a friend to defy her dad and talk to the other kids at school, she hadn't meant for things to get so-
Friends complicated things.
But, as it turned out, even Quinn Fabray couldn't live on the fumes of human contact alone. She wanted the connections she couldn't have, she wanted the love she didn't deserve.
Quinn felt the base of her throat grow stiff with contained sobs, and she stood abruptly and yanked her hand out of Ms. Pillsbury's hold. No, no way was she crying. Not in front of Ms. P. Ms. Pillsbury would start asking her all sorts of questions, feeling obligated to do her job and fix what was wrong.
Or worse, Ms. P would ask because she actually cared.
Quinn jerked towards the door, but suddenly she could barely see through tears and the sobs she'd been holding back ripped from her throat, even as she wrapped fingers around her neck to contain them, trying to strangle them back into submission. Ms. Pillsbury fluttered into view, a blur of red hair in a murky world, and another sob escaped her mouth, and before she knew what was happening Ms. Pillsbury had moved Quinn's hands from her throat and wrapped her arms around the girl, murmuring soothing nonsense into her ear and rubbing her hands up and down Quinn's back. Quinn's fingers curled into claws at Ms. Pillsbury's side, ready to rip the counselor away, but as she reached towards Ms. P they softened on their own and wove around the woman's back as Quinn sagged into her. Without meaning to Quinn let go of her hold on herself, inhuman noises hiccupping from her mouth and tears streaming down her face.
Why was this happening? What had Rachel torn out of her now?
Ms. Pillsbury just hugged her, let her cry herself out. After Quinn was done, she asked one more time if Quinn wanted to talk. When Quinn shook her head no, Ms. P nodded and pulled out their PB&J sandwich early, offering Quinn her half.
.
Rachel didn't see Quinn for the rest of the day, which was not really a surprise since after Spanish she rarely saw the girl, but it was still disconcerting. Quinn had left in such a hurry after an intense situation, without a goodbye. She had clearly been upset by the whole thing. While Rachel empathized, she also knew that it was a good thing to tell the Skanks asking for help was important. Ronnie and Sheila had even seemed interested in the possibility of getting the help they needed.
It was a relief that her words had been heard by someone. But it was disappointing and not just a little worrying that Quinn hadn't heard them. Rachel couldn't banish the guilt she felt, that she hadn't noticed that bullies still ran rampant through McKinley High. That the bullies were even worse than she'd imagined possible. Physical assault? Sexual assault? How many more girls like Mack were there? How could the administration know and not do anything?
And the worst part of it all was that Ms. Sylvester was right. Rachel had tried to get other students to punish Phillip, as if student justice was enough. It absolutely was not, these assaults were too serious a matter to try and contain it through high school politics. The faculty had failed them. But there were other resources. If Rachel had thought it important enough, she'd have told her parents, and if she'd been able to get corroboration she could have gotten the police involved. Rachel had thought herself powerful enough to stop the abuse, and her arrogance could have been disastrous.
Rachel started to walk into glee club, but before she could take one step in, a very angry latina pushed her back into the hallway and nearly pinned her against the lockers.
"What's this shit about Fabray, someone hurt her?" Santana snapped, worry bleeding through the anger. Through Rachel's surprise she felt a small amount of vindication at the proof that Santana still cared.
"Not her, Santana, don't worry. Quinn was defending one of her friends." Santana practically recoiled at the use of 'Quinn' and 'friends' in the same sentence, so Rachel quickly amended, "You know, one of the Skanks. Quinn's a member, but it seems like more of a school thing."
"Quinn isn't a Skank," Santana said with a roll of her eyes. "She's too WASPy to ever be a real Skank. Girl can dye her hair and smell like an ashtray, she's still an ice queen."
"Well, I don't know about WASPy, but Quinn is definitely not a Skank, not really. She's… Quinn."
"She's Quinn," Santana repeated, sagging a little. "So she was defending someone, huh? I taught her how to do that. Not that Fabray ever got into fights on the regular, too prim and proper, but she joined me in a couple."
"Did she really?" Rachel asked with a laugh, drinking in anything she could learn about the friendship between Quinn, San, and Britt.
"Yeah, both times some douchenozzle insulted Britt, so she jumped in."
"Oh, and you don't know about the time someone called you a bad word and Q kicked them in the balls," Brittany supplied as she popped up behind Santana.
"She what?" Santana squawked, spinning on her heel to face her girlfriend.
Brittany deflated slightly. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that, she made me pinky swear."
Santana's brow creased, confusion painting her face. Brittany rocked forward on her toes, her hands held behind her back as she teetered. "It was in eighth grade, Q and I were waiting out in the courtyard for you to get out of detention, and we heard a boy insulting you, he called you a wetback. I mean, mostly your back gets wet from sweat when we get it on so I didn't really get it, but Quinn got so mad. She started screaming at him, real Quinn screaming, and she kicked him hard."
Santana was shaking her head, but her eyes were glistening. "You can't be serious."
"Yeah, it was really scary. And super hot," Brittany confirmed.
"I can't believe this, I can't believe I didn't know this. Why did she want to hide this from me?!" Santana exploded, walking away from Rachel and Brittany and swearing long and loud in Spanish. Rachel and Brittany let her cool down, which took a good five minutes. Mr. Schuester walked out into the hallway, saw what was happening, and closed the door to the choir room.
Santana eventually wandered back. She hadn't cried, but her eyes were red rimmed with the threat of tears and she looked miserable. Brittany wrapped her arms around Santana and put her chin on her girlfriend's shoulder.
Rachel put her hand on Santana's shoulder. "She didn't want you to know."
"Obviously she didn't want me to know!" Santana said, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.
"No, San. What I mean is, she didn't want you to know how much she loved you."
Santana's mask cracked, and she hid her face against her girlfriend's shoulder. Muffled by a thick throat and her girlfriend's shirt, Santana groaned, "This is so stupid! I never wanted to stop being her fucking friend. Did she even want to stop being mine?"
Rachel shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, Santana, but… well, I mean, maybe you can ask her?"
Santana snarled deep in her throat, peeking out from her girlfriend's embrace to cast a scathing look at Rachel. "I tried to ask her and she ran away from me every chance."
"That was two years ago. Surely there's enough distance from it for you two to have a civil conversation. You're talking in Spanish class, after all. She can't run from you there."
The thing about Santana, Rachel had found, was that she put up a really strong front, but with those that she loved and trusted she was extremely vulnerable to hurt. If someone she cared for betrayed her, it cut deep. And Santana was a stubborn person, the most stubborn person Rachel had ever met besides herself (and now Quinn was vying for a position there). Santana was rarely, if ever, the one to take the first step towards a resolution. This was fine for Rachel because she was always willing to take first steps. Quinn, on the other hand…
Santana and Brittany peeled apart, Santana looking much better if still frustrated, and the three of them finally went into glee.
Halfway through club, Mr. Schue looked down at his phone and frowned.
At the end of club he stopped Rachel. Santana and Brittany lingered to wait.
"Rachel, Ms. Pillsbury asked me to request you meet her in her office after glee club. Are you in trouble?"
Rachel shrank a little. Had Quinn told Ms. Pillsbury about her mistake? Ms. Pillsbury had supplied some information on what the fight had been about, was she going to be angry that Rachel had taken it further and betrayed trust?
"Is this about Quinn?" Santana demanded, suddenly at Rachel's shoulder.
"I- I don't know," Rachel replied. She thought it might, but she couldn't say definitively.
"I'm coming with," Santana announced, and before Rachel could protest Santana and Brittany were leaving the choir room and heading toward the counselor's office. Rachel jogged to keep up, getting in front of them so that she'd be the first to enter Ms. Pillsbury's office and be able to announce the coming storm.
Needless to say, Ms. Pillsbury was unprepared for the three New Directions girls invading her office. She knew Santana only by reputation (and what a reputation it was) and every Glee club competition. She'd never had a conversation with the girl. As for Brittany Pierce… Emma only knew her as the ditzy type. Popular, bubbly, blonde.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Pillsbury, I know you only asked for me but my friends insisted-"
"What's going on with Fabray?" Santana demanded.
Ms. Pillsbury was generally perceived by the student body as weak, but in that moment they were proved wrong as she straightened her back and said fiercely, "Santana, you forced your way into this conversation and you may find it surprising to know that I can change that very easily and not include you in any way. I asked for Rachel and had no intention of speaking to you on this, as it's not your business."
"I'm sorry San is roaring, she does it when she's scared. Is it about Quinn?" Brittany asked nervously, biting her lip.
Ms. Pillsbury looked from girl to girl, then she started slowly, "Rachel…"
"I sincerely apologize, but I assure you if it is about Quinn Fabray, everyone in this room cares about her deeply. Including you, I suspect."
Emma Pillsbury sighed, running her hand across her face. "This is not at all how I wanted this to go. But I'm too worried about Quinn to put this off. Rachel, you've been hanging out with Quinn recently? You've become her friend?"
"Yes," Rachel replied uncertainly, unsure of where this was headed.
"Did you talk to her today?"
"Yes, earlier. But I haven't seen her since Spanish period."
"Did she- did you upset her in any way, or did she seem upset?"
Rachel bristled slightly. "We had an intense conversation, and truthfully she did seem upset, but all I said was that she needed to tell someone if something was wrong, when she was being bullied, or it would never get better."
"I see…" Ms. Pillsbury tented her fingers and pressed them to her lips in thought. After a pause, she said, "I completely agree with you, Rachel. And I'd like to ask a favor."
"What?"
"Keep at it. Don't let her push you away." Ms. Pillsbury's eyes were more serious than Rachel had ever seen them. "You're pushing buttons that I think need to be pushed. Quinn works very hard to push people away from her, and she's seeming more and more… lost. It's heartbreaking. I refuse to let her get lost. But I can only do so much, you understand. I'm not her peer the way that you are, and I can't provide what you can because of our limits and boundaries. You don't have those limits."
"Did something happen?" Rachel asked quietly, fearing the answer.
Ms. Pillsbury paused again, seeming to consider. "Not anything like you're thinking, I don't believe. If it was anything I could- You have to understand, a lot of this is based on a feeling that something isn't right."
"I know that feeling, Ms. Pillsbury," Rachel said softly, worrying her lip.
"…something's always been off with Q, I just didn't really know what to do about it," Santana said with a self-conscious shrug. "She isn't exactly the share-y type, you know?"
Rachel found the information that something had always been off with Quinn more than a little upsetting. On the one hand, she wished Santana or Brittany had figured out what it was. But Rachel knew it wasn't their fault that they hadn't. They had been middle-schoolers then. And them not chasing down answers didn't mean they hadn't cared, it meant they were young. "I'm sure you did your best by her," Rachel soothed, but the scowl on Santana's face, directed at no one in particular, didn't fade.
"I didn't know you knew Quinn," Ms. Pillsbury ventured delicately.
When Santana didn't offer answers, Brittany replied, "We were best friends with her before high school. San's mom called us the Unholy Trinity, we were so close. Quinn didn't like that much, though, she said it was shackledge."
"Sacrilege, Britt Britt," Santana corrected automatically.
"Yeah, that."
"Best friends?" Ms. Pillsbury seemed shocked at the very idea. "I didn't know- Quinn never said. Why did you stop being her friend?"
Santana stiffened, eyes flashing dangerously, but she didn't explode into a tirade again. Rachel answered instead. "Quinn stopped talking to them both at the beginning of high school. She didn't give a reason, it was unexpected."
"I see," Ms. Pillsbury said, surveying the girls who had been Quinn's best friends with critical eyes. Rachel wondered if Ms. Pillsbury was questioning if she could place blame on them, for what had happened. Rachel hoped she wouldn't, and given some time the counselor would be reasonable. Ms. Pillsbury had always seemed fair.
The redheaded woman stood. "So will you- will all three of you do it? Keep an eye on her, push the buttons that need to be pushed? I'm hoping you will be able to read her signals."
Rachel had been planning to do just that, anyway, so she bounced with the thought of it also being a mission from a teacher. She looked at her best friends to see their answers. Brittany was watching her girlfriend intently. Rachel was pretty sure that either way Santana decided, Britt would still say yes, but Britt also cared about San's state-of-mind. The latina was glaring off into the distance. When she realized all three other occupants of the room were staring at her, she snapped, "Duh! Quinn may be a stone cold bitch, but she's my stone cold bitch. Forever and always."
Brittany squealed and flung her arms around Santana. Rachel beamed, then turned and gave Ms. Pillsbury a sharp nod. "We would absolutely love to, Ms. Pillsbury."
Blinded slightly by Rachel's brilliant show smile, Ms. P only smiled back.
...
Quinn's day hadn't gotten any better. Because her father had been gone for the night, he came home without having to go to work and he was at the house when Quinn got there. He'd wanted an enthusiastic welcome home. Quinn had decided to get it over sooner rather than later, and got down on her knees with her backpack still on. She'd spent ten minutes after rinsing and re-rinsing her mouth out, Listerine and water alternating. It was humiliating, completely degrading, but it was one of the quicker ways to get her dad off her back. She tried to ignore the tears that pricked her eyes as she rinsed, choosing to blame it on the intense mint of her mouthwash.
She was not about to cry a second time today.
She went to her room and closed the door, knowing it was ineffectual against keeping her dad out of her room but still a small amount of comfort. Almost as soon as Quinn sat down there was a buzzing from her phone. Quinn flinched, debating whether to answer. Only one person texted her, and she wasn't really feeling up to dealing with the diva anymore today. Then the phone buzzed again and Quinn groaned and unlocked her phone.
Quinn I am very sorry to have upset you today, but I feel that what I said was true.
I just wanted to make sure that you weren't terribly mad at me, and let you know that I've scheduled with Santana and Brittany to use tomorrow's study hall for our project. We all have the same study hall.
Quinn felt anxiety fill her gut at the thought of having to spend a whole extra period with Santana and Brittany, but she and Rachel hadn't gotten much work done on the project on Monday. This would make up for that, hopefully. Quinn wasn't about to get anything short of an A.
I'm not mad, it was unexpected that's all. Study hall sounds good.
The response was instantaneous.
Oh good, I'm glad to hear it! I have some notes that I thought we could go over with S and B, we got a bit of work done on Monday despite everything.
Quinn felt a tug of guilt at the reminder she'd thrown Rachel out because of her own paranoia issues. Sure, it was fairly probable that Rachel did in fact want to sleep with her because of her reputation and the curse of her looks, but Rachel also seemed… not quite as beastly as others tended to be.
And hey, maybe her attitude and punk look was keeping Rachel at bay, like it was intended to.
Cool. I'll be there.
Wanna meet at your locker? Which is it?
Quinn raised an eyebrow, not really sure why they couldn't just meet at the library.
I don't really use my locker.
Oh, alright, well my locker number is 443, meet there?
Sure. See you tomorrow.
Quinn turned off her phone before she could get any more texts, thoroughly done with human interaction for as long as she could put it off.
I've been noticing a lot of anger toward Santana in the reviews, and while it's fairly justified because she's extremely stubborn and venomous, I'd just like to mention that when Quinn cut off friendship with B and S, Santana was only 14. At fourteen, being cut off from a friend can feel like being ripped in two. Santana, who works very hard to not have feelings, internalized that hurt as powerful anger. She's not the healthiest person, but her stubbornness can be her best and worst trait.
