As soon as Quinn stepped out her car the next morning she knew something was off. The school parking lot was way too empty and she had a strange feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. Grabbing her cheerios duffel bag from the trunk she locked the car and wandered over to the school entrance with her eyes constantly scanning for what might be different. She saw just a few students walking around, making their ways to their homerooms but she spotted nobody she knew well enough to ask what was going on.
That was until she saw Brittany. "Brit! What's going on? Where is everybody?" she asked, hoping her not-that-bright friend would give her a sensible answer.
"I think there is a fight going on round there but I got bored so I left. Can you tell me what time my watch says, I don't know how to read it..."
"Who? Who is the fight between Brittany?" Quinn replied getting a bit worried about the participants of this fight.
Brittany looked around for a couple of seconds trying to think of her answer and Quinn was getting a little impatient but she tried to calm herself. Finally, Brittany answered; "I think it was Sam and-"
But Quinn didn't need to hear anymore, she was off and running down the hall in hopes of getting to this fight. She could hear Brittany in the behind her asking her to tell her the time again but as much as Quinn wanted to help, she just didn't have time.
The conflict was hard to miss and Quinn knew she was there immediately. It seemed that the majority of the school was watching which would explain the deserted parking lot and hallways. She began to push her way through the crowds of students to get the heart of it all. When she made it to the front, after a few knocks and shoves, all her fears we confirmed; the fight was between Sam and Puck and it looked like Puck had the upper hand.
"Puck! Stop!" she shouted but she barely heard herself over all the commotion. She saw Sam already had a bloody nose; she must have missed quite a lot. Quinn went over to the two and tried to get in the middle of them. "Guys, stop it!" She pushed at Puck's chest, trying to get him to give it up.
"Stop! Please" she said, getting genuinely worried for both of them. Puck was mid punch when he saw the concern in Quinn's eyes and it made him pause for just a second but that was all Quinn needed.
"Please don't do this" she said, in a quieter tone now a lot of the noise had died down. She looked each of them in the eye, one after another. "Don't do this to each other. Don't do this to me. If either one of you gets hurt it will hurt me. Please." The last bit was merely a whisper but it seemed to work and she felt the two boys relax slightly.
Quinn stepped back from them and then remembered all the spectators. She turned around to see who was there and in that split second she looked away Puck lost it. She heard a loud punch, a crack of bone and Sam falling to the ground. She turned around to see just the last part. "Sam!" she screamed.
He led on the floor, clutching his nose from which blood was flowing at a rate Quinn could never remember seeing before in her life. She kneeled down beside him and grabbed his hand. "Sam. Sam, it's going to be alright." Quinn could see he was fighting the urge to scream out loud so she just sat next to him, trying to comfort him. She looked over at Puck and said "I told you to stop. Why didn't you stop?"
Puck gave no reply just looked at her with desperation in his eyes and then he turned and walked away. She watched him trudge away and then she turned her attention back to the boy in agony next to her.
"Quinn" he said, trying to keep his voice even. "I'm so sorry Quinn, for everything..."
"Shhh" she replied, "I'm sorry too but we'll sort this out okay?" She smoothed his hair out of his face as he nodded. Suddenly, teachers and what looked like ambulance crew came pushing through the astonished crowd and began attending to Sam.
Will was there too and he was attempting to clear the area of curious students and get them to go to their homerooms. "You too, Quinn" he said to her as she was watching, now stood up, Sam.
"But... Sam..."
"You'll see him later. I'd love to let you go with him but they wouldn't let you anyway. C'mon"
Quinn reluctantly did what he said and walked away but with one last look in her boyfriend's direction.
Everything is so messed up, Quinn was thinking to herself as she drove to the hospital after first period to see Sam. She had no doubt in her mind that the fight had had something to do with her and Beth which meant that Sam was now aware of the situation. Another downer was that Puck was so sweet on the phone but now he was just being an idiot. Of course she didn't exactly know what had aggravated him but whatever it was it couldn't have been worth getting Sam hurt like that. She still was no closer to making her decision; in fact she'd say she was further away from making it. The only good thing to come out of this whole thing, she thought, was that her issue with Sam seemed to be sorted out.
Abruptly, her ringtone began to ring, her ringtone was her and Rachel singing which they had recorded at Rachel's house after school a few days ago. However, they hadn't gotten far into the song before bursting into laughter with each other. Quinn was smiling so much at the memory that she almost forgot to actually pick up her phone. Trying to carefully focus on her driving at the same time, Quinn looked at her cell and saw it was Puck calling so she declined the call; she couldn't face him yet.
Just a minute later, the phone rang again. Frustrated, Quinn looked at the screen and saw it was her mom so she declined that call to; she just couldn't deal with that right now either. As if it was possible for someone to get three calls from three different people in about three minutes, her phone rang again. Quinn looked again and seeing that this time it was Rachel she picked up.
"Hey Rach,"
"Hey Quinn, I heard what happened, are you okay? How's Sam?"
"Well I'm just on my way to see him now but I think it's probably broken, you should have seen the blood"
"Okay, well I just wanted to check you were okay which you seem to be?" Rachel said.
"Yeah, I'll be alright. Thank you Rachel, you're such a great friend"
"Well so are you. Look I need to go now but if you need anything just call okay?"
"Thanks and bye, Rachel."
"Bye, Quinn." Quinn hung up the phone and found herself driving into the hospital car park.
