A/N hi again guys! Now, before I forget (Again!) the song Rachel sung in that last chapter was Other Side Of The World, by KT Tunstall! It's an awesome song and I fully encourage that you guys listen to it, I can totally picture Lea Michele singing it. Now, without further ado, here's the next chapter!

Schadenfreude

Chapter Seven

The next morning came with as much warning and kindness as a slap to the face. The young sunlight shining through the dusty windows became daggers that assailed my tender eyes. All the colors seemed to bright, each chipper call of a bird too energetic and loud. Everything was wrong. If I was still someone with intense faith in God, I'd think He was telling me something. But that had fallen by the wayside with each bad thing that happened to me, with each person that abandoned me, with each scathing stare I earned during church, with each passing day. Eventually I had just stopped trying, stopped believing, because I knew that's what He did about me. Just stopped caring. I lurched upward, steadying myself against the seat in front of me and waiting for the morning sickness to slam into me, but it never came. Huh, a silver lining, who'd have thought it? In my rush to get into school and begin my morning ritual, I noticed the dress Rachel had let me borrow. It wasn't hard to notice, after all, it was the only piece of clothing in this car that wasn't wrinkled, or crumpled into a ball awaiting a run to the Laundromat which I knew I couldn't afford. The dress however, was laid out neatly against the back of the seat, a kind of compromise I'd made. The calming vanilla-musk perfume of her skin still clung to the fabric, which made it almost impossible to bury my face within and inhale, but I also felt like that was a bit weird and stalkerish. Laying it out where I could see and smell was a fair compromise, I supposed. I'm not sure, something about that piece of clothing soothed me, it was almost like she was there all the time with me, and if I closed my eyes I could almost imagine that she was hugging me just like on that stage a few weeks ago. I folded the dress up and put it into my backpack, anyway I had to give it back sometime. Something within me snapped, and just like that, five minutes into the day, and I'd already had enough. I groaned as I clambered out of the backseat, tugging on the cardigan I'd grabbed as it snagged on my car door, before realizing the newfound chill in the air. Winter was coming, shit. Just another obstacle. Like always, the building was still asleep, and I snuck in to continue with my usual morning routine. By the time I was dressed, ready, and sufficiently prepared to face the day, it was almost time for first period to start. I was running late, and I cursed under my breath in frustration. If I become less vigilant about all this, people will definitely find out, but it's all so overwhelming. Shoving that aside, I rushed out into the tide of students, all rushing towards their respective classes. I had retreated so far within my head, preoccupied with mentally chastising myself for letting my guard slip, that I didn't notice the weird stares from onlookers until Jacob Ben Israel was right in my face.

"Quinn Fabray!" he shouted, shoving that obnoxious microphone right beneath my nose, practically smacking me in the face with his over-eagerness.

"Do you have any comment on last night's breaking news I released on my blog?" why would I have any comment? I'm pretty sure that I've been relegated to the position of insignificant-little-speck-of-nothingness on the high school stage. He apparently took my silence as an indication that I had no idea what the heck he'd been talking about. Which of course was true, the last I'd heard, he was busy 'reporting' on Brittany's 'summer vacation lost in the sewers'. His skinny, rat-like paw held a screenshot from his blog, and he shoved it in my face much like he did with the microphone. Once I determined that the risk of paper cuts to my corneas was passed, I opened my eyes and read the headline cautiously.

Insider Tell-All on Quinn Fabray—Once a Slut, Always a Slut?

No.

"I happened to run into that new boy-toy of yours the other day, and he just wouldn't stop going on and on about your 'wild night' together." He clarified, fumbling with the tape recorder on his belt as if he still thought he was going to get an interview. What wild night though? Literally nothing went on between the two of us!

"Nothing happened." I stated plainly, trying to hide the fact that I was panicking inside. The words seemed to float out of my grasp like a balloon, before I could grab them and have that tangible proof that someone was lying.

"That's not what one 'Darrell Ekland' told me. Not to mention the eyewitness reports of you two spending some 'alone time' in his car the other night." My mind had all gone blank, I just couldn't-I- this wasn't real, none of this could be happening, none of this did happen! I grabbed JewFro by the limp collar of his shirt and dragged him off to the side to the first refuge I could think of, the girls washroom. No one really paid attention to the little skirt-wearing figure on the door anymore considering the fact that both Kurt and Puck had spent an inordinate amount of time in there, for different reasons of course. Jacob, on the other hand, looked like Christmas had come early.

"Okay! Granted I'm partial to Mary-Jane and animal-sweater wearing Jewish brunettes, but if you insist…" yeah buddy, that makes two of us. I summoned up just about every little bit of Head-Bitch-In-Charge Quinn, because I knew I was going to need her.

"So I bet you're wondering what it'll take for me to not run this story, well I'm nothing if not willing to compromise on this, despite the fact that you've been looser than the neck of a thrift-store turtleneck these days. So… C'mon, JBI wants a little action." he urged, making these repulsive groping motions with his unnaturally small hands. He does have rat hands. And a rat brain as well if he thought he was getting anything from me. I backed him up into a corner, hoping that it would intimidate him, but all I got in reply was a reverently uttered 'wanky'.

"Listen you little rat, you may be perfectly fine with being a vehicle for everyone else's lies and gossip, but I refuse to let you ruin my reputation any more than it already is!" I snarled, pushing the boy against the wall with my fist against his throat. I tried with all my might to seem bigger and more intimidating than him. Where was Santana when you need her?

"What reputation? And anyway, it's too late for any bribery, since the post went live on my blog last night. For ALL of Lima to see…" now this idiot was trying to antagonize me. I growled in the back of my throat, shoving him harder into the wall and trying to keep the sadistic glee off my face when I saw him wince.

"Take. The. Article. Down. Or else I will have you hoisted up the flagpole and left there until the vultures mistake your sheep-like hair for some dead animal and rip it from your scalp." I snarled.

"Firstly, th-the internet is forever, I cannot take it down. Secondly, you don't have the weight at this school anymore; besides the baby-fat you've been gaining. No one's going to do your bidding anymore." He grinned crookedly, his skinny, mouse-like teeth bared in some sick form of happiness. See, at least when I took pleasure in his pain, I not only tried to supress it, but I certainly looked less creepy than him. Still though, I was fumbling for a comeback.

"Not to mention the fact that by threatening me, you're violating this school's right to freedom of the press. It's in the first Amendment, look it up." He chuckled, still looking slightly nervous. I wanted to sigh, I wanted to sigh and back away and once again admit defeat, but the squeak of a shoe against the floor coming from within one of the stalls reminded me that I still had to be hard-as-nails Quinn, for just a few seconds more.

"Get out of my sight JewFro." I muttered resignedly, shoving him towards the door. He stared at me, more like stared at my chest, longingly for a few seconds more before scampering out on his fleet little paws. I was of half a mind to check and see whether he had a scaly, hairless rat-tail hidden under his jeans, but that line of thinking just happened to gross me out even more. I leaned against the sink and sighed, I knew how this was going to turn out. The story would run, everyone would take to the hallways spreading gossip faster than The Plague (Another thing that originated from rats like Jacob) and I would sink from rock bottom, to buried somewhere deep below in the bedrock. The slushies would pick up in frequency, which I was dreading because I was already down to my last few handfuls of change, and I didn't want to have to choose between buying food, and going to the Laundromat. Because cutting either one of those things from my routine just wasn't going to work out well. I suppose I could get a job, but what employer would hire a pregnant sixteen-year old? But I'm going to need some sort of money to pay for the costs of y'know, living! If only my head would shut up.

"I'm starting to think you live here." A voice remarked, frightening me. I didn't have to look up to recognize it as Rachel. My heartbeat picked up the pace as I realized how close to the truth se really was. Combined with the normal elevation in heart rate that comes with me being close to her, and I was pretty sure that I would have a heart attack soon.

"I could say the same for you Berry." I muttered, refusing to look her in the eye. Along with the return of my intimidation around Jacob, came the slightest bit of the old-Quinn bitchiness. Rachel, of course, acted unfazed, like one of those stupid people at the zoo who try and pet the tiger. If one got too close or too bold, they were in danger of being devoured. Of course, then I started thinking about how devour-able Rachel looked right now, which I think was supposed to be a compliment, but was distracting anyway…

"Oh, I need to return this to you." I exclaimed softly, before handing over the perfectly-folded navy blue dress. One look at her current outfit, and I was thanking my lucky stars that I'd gotten the relatively-normal looking outfit. The dress Rachel was currently clad in was an off-white and covered in, what took me a few seconds to realize, was an jaunty red abstract pattern of… Barbeques? A little ironic for a vegan. Yet somehow it was still totally adorable.

"Oh, thank you Quinn." She replied, taking the neatly folded dress and tucking it into what I assumed was her emergency slushy clean-up kit. The skin on the tips of my fingers still tingled where her hands brushed mine, and I forced the thought away as I became aware of the awkward lull we were hovering in. She looked me up and down, a gentle, speculative gaze skimming over my wrinkled dress which was in need of a cycle in a washing machine, to the cardigan with the smallest fraying hole in the sleeve where it had caught against my car door this morning, to my limp hair that hung lifelessly around my face. Usually it wasn't so drab and oily, but I'd run out of shampoo this morning. Just another thing I couldn't afford.

"Are you alright Quinn? You look a little sick." She asked, her warm eyes coaxing me to meet her gaze without even trying. Perhaps I was sick, I'm not sure, now that she'd mentioned it, all I could think of was the uncomfortable churning in my stomach and the dizziness in my head. It was probably morning sickness, or stress, or maybe it was because I hadn't eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours…

"F-fine. Why would you care R-RuPaul?" I felt the words freeze up in my tongue and my throat, as if they couldn't quite communicate with my head, which was currently spinning like some sick carnival ride. Of course, insults, that old familiar friend I always fell back on when it came to dealing with Rachel. As soon as the words left my head and entered the world I felt ashamed, but nothing compared to how ashamed I felt about my current situation.

"Quinn." The uttered breathily, avoiding my gaze for a second before her eyes bored right into mine. Usually I found it soothing or comforting or even… attractive, when she stared at me, but this glance was tempered with the diamond-sharpness of the tears lingering in her eyes. Her beautiful little face scrunched up, her eyes squeezing shut as she fought with her whole body against her emotions, before unsteadily looking back up at me. In her duress she had grabbed a fistful of the quirky printed fabric of the skirt on her dress, and was squeezing and twisting it in her tiny, delicate fist. Somehow, as I saw her wrestle with all the awful things I'd made her feel, I swore I could feel her doing the same with my heart, squeezing and rending and clenching it, until all that was left was guilt. She allowed herself the second it took to compose herself, before returning to what she was talking about earlier.

"Why? Why do you hate me so much?" the words, as softly uttered as they were, felt like a stiff kick in the chest. It felt like the hand that had been wringing my heart like a dishcloth had torn it straight from my body.

"I don't!" I denied fiercely, shoving the words from my chest as fast as possible. My lungs ached at the exertion. Not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure that's the lamest defense ever. Rachel didn't seem to take notice of that, perhaps it was too forced, since she just continued on with her pre-planned topic of conversation.

"I could have been your friend." My first response to that, mentally of course, was no. Not no because she's a 'Glee loser' or because she's RuPaul or Stubbles or Treasure Trail, or because she's annoying and loudmouthed. No because she's such a happy person, she doesn't need me dragging her down. I don't deserve the forgiveness she was offering.

"I still can be. You need someone, and I could be your someone." She offered, pairing her tentative words with an equally tentative grin, before backing away slowly. Rachel had climbed over the fence at the zoo, pet the tiger, and suddenly out of the blue backed off, remembering it was a wild animal, that a tiger can't change its stripes. Apparently I can't change my stripes either.

"I didn't sleep with him." I muttered as she turned to leave. I couldn't hold the words back, I felt just like I needed her, needed someone to believe me. All I needed was one person who didn't think I was some kind of school slut. Rachel stared at me with the same expression one might wear when they see their child knock over a vase. That sort of controlled disappointment, that look that uttered 'oh, I almost forgot that they don't know any better'. I wasn't exactly sure why she might be disappointed in me, but it was definitely disappointment. I'd been friends with Brittany long enough to pick up a bit of her intuitiveness.

"I know. It's just gossip Quinn, I wouldn't believe it unless you'd said it was true" She replied, with a sad smile on her face, the disenchantment stitched amid her satiny brown eyes shimmering against the light as she turned to leave. The warm halo which followed her dissipated just as quickly, leaving me alone and chilled, but with my senses sharp and crystalline. It started to make sense, that misplaced disappointment I'd happened upon. She saw the old Quinn. Not the Quinn who rained insults upon every loser in her scalding sight, not the Quinn who ordered slushy attacks in the same manner that an unforgiving dictator might order an execution, not the one who drew pornographic pictures of her on the bathroom walls (probably not my subtlest move) or the Quinn who instilled fear in everyone, or even the Quinn who hated Glee, but the Quinn who put her reputation and image first. The Quinn that created all those other awful parts of me. I mean, most people who go through what I do would end up undergoing some sort of change right? At least something more significant than needing elastic-waist pants. But somehow I'm still the same, the same old prickly, vain, fickle person whom I hated to the core.

A/N heehee, I'm enjoying writing JBI a little bit… Oh, and Rachel's dress was inspired off one I saw at a local craft show recently, which I stared at for a few minutes until I realized it had barbeques printed on it. The first thing out of my mouth after that? "Rachel would so wear something like that." Oh, and secondly, I'm almost finished writing the next chapter (Which is heavy on the Brittana angst) but it's turning out to be really long. So, would you guys like it as one big chapter, or two shorter, faster ones? Please review, I'm like Tinkerbell, and Rachel, I need reviews to live!