Author's Note: So one reviewer asked if Rachel had gone through enough and could be happy now... uh, not quite. Sorry. But things are definitely starting to unravel and I promise we'll get there soon. Thanks for reading and reviewing.


Due to her unexpected break down in front of Shelby, Rachel felt anxious and edgy throughout the entire duration of their instruction. Shelby appeared to be doing her best not to comment on the episode and maintained mostly professional, but Rachel caught several concerned stares being thrown her way when Shelby thought she wasn't paying attention. It was incredibly uncomfortable and if she didn't know Mr. Ellis was waiting for her, Rachel would have bolted from the room an hour ago.

Shelby desperately wanted to question Rachel about what had happened earlier, but it was clear to her that Rachel was pretending it never happened and Shelby didn't want to shatter the girl's delusion. As silly as it seemed to Shelby to ignore the fact that a short while ago Rachel had been a sobbing hysterical mess on the floor, it also seemed cruel to push Rachel into opening up to her after Rachel had expressed such fiery resentment towards her. Rachel wouldn't even look at her for more than a couple seconds at a time and she refused to engage in any small talk Shelby attempted. It was pretty clear to Shelby that Rachel didn't want to talk about it and maybe allowing Rachel to pretend was all she could do for now. Although if it happened again Shelby was definitely not above locking the girl in one of the dressing rooms and refusing to let her out till she revealed what was causing her so much distress.

Despite the tension, Shelby and Rachel continued running through Rachel's solo for over an hour and a half. As time wore on Shelby ran out of notes to offer Rachel but she was reluctant to end the vocal session. She knew she couldn't push Rachel into talking, but Shelby hoped their time together would soften Rachel towards her a bit so that eventually Rachel would feel comfortable around her. Just as Shelby was trying to figure out a seamless way to transition her daughter into a friendly conversation, Mr. Ellis peeked his head into the room and rapped quickly on the door.

"Making progress?" he asked Shelby as he stepped into the room.

Shelby nodded and explained some of what they had gone over while Rachel listened quietly. Rachel noted that Shelby spoke so definitively, so confidently. It was as if Shelby spoke and lived entirely without doubt. Jesse had told her horror stories about Shelby's strict rule and non-nonsense demeanor. Maybe if she possessed a little more of her mother's strength she wouldn't be in the situation she was with Mr. Ellis. No one would ever dare mess with a woman as strong as Shelby.

"Sounds like you've done enough with our young star for today, Miss Corcoran. I'd like you to see Jesse, Scott and Luke next. Luke has been struggling a bit with their number from first act and I want it addressed tonight," Mr. Ellis stated. He lingered for a moment, shifting his gaze between Shelby and Rachel.

"Rachel, can I see you for a minute?" he then asked with a careful non-expression.

Rachel looked to Shelby as if the woman would telepathically hear her cry for help. "Actually, I'm not really confident in my ability to perform this song. I'd like to keep working on it with Shelby," she said desperately.

"You nailed it, Rachel. You don't need me to work on it with you," Shelby interjected, not seeing the way her daughter's eyes pleaded with her. Rachel was being too hard on herself, Shelby thought, she had barely needed any instruction to begin with. Shelby figured a confidence boost might go a long way with the fragile girl.

Rachel tried to open her mouth to refute Shelby's claim, but she couldn't find the words. All she could do was shake her head slightly. Her mother had sold her out. She was grasping for a lifeline and Shelby was tossing her back into the choppy waters. Part of her knew it was irrational to be mad at Shelby for not being able to read her mind, but Rachel was too terrified to think rationally. Shelby had let her down again.

Mr. Ellis raised his eyes as if he was aware that Rachel was trying to delay their meeting. "Well, I guess that's settled. I'll send the guys back. Rachel, my office please."

Rachel followed behind Mr. Ellis in a daze. His office wasn't too far from the greenroom, which meant Shelby, Jesse, and the others would only be a about 30 feet away. Mr. Ellis led her into the tiny room and told her to wait while he went to speak to the actors on stage. She considered taking off right then, just fleeing from the office and the theater and never turning back, but then Shelby would be suspicious and Jesse would be out of work. Despite the obvious drawbacks, Rachel was still eyeing the door when Mr. Ellis returned.

Rachel swallowed hard as Mr. Ellis closed the door behind him with a slimy smile. She hadn't had a private meeting with him since Finn asked her to junior prom last week. Apparently he wasn't able to find the time or opportunity to get her alone.

He was on her instantly, kissing her with fervor. "God, I've missed those full lips of yours," he breathed into her mouth. Mr. Ellis guided her back against the wall and started to grind his pelvis into her.

Rachel shuttered a bit each time the director's growing bulge rubbed against her stomach. She pushed at his shoulder to try to get some space. If Mr. Ellis was going to do what he was going to do, she'd rather he just get it over with. She succeeded in getting him to take a step back, but only so that he could fumble with the buttons on her jeans.

"What happened to your slutty little skirts?" Mr. Ellis asked with his mouth hot against Rachel's neck. "They were much more accessible," he finished with a nip of her skin. She had stopped wearing them to the theater for that precise reason.

Rachel tried to go away, to leave her body behind like she usually did during these encounters, but something was keeping her from retreating to that safe place in the back of her mind. Finn. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was betraying him. She never wanted this in the first place, but it happened and if it happened again she'd be cheating, at least in her mind. She couldn't do that to Finn again. The guilt gnawed at her, preventing her body from mechanically taking over.

"Wait! Stop," she cried out as Mr. Ellis started rubbing her through her panties.

"We don't have time for this," Mr. Ellis barked at her as he pressed his forearm against her chest to keep her in place. He slipped the flimsy material between her legs to the side and pressed his fingers into her.

Rachel gasped and squirmed against the wall, desperate to get away. "No, I can't do this. I have a boyfriend. You have to stop. Please."

Mr. Ellis's hand stilled suddenly and for a second Rachel thought she might have finally found an out. "You have a boyfriend?" he said, echoing her. "How nice." His lips curled into a sickening smile. "Are you fucking him?"

"What?" Rachel asked, startled by the gruffness of his voice. "No!"

"It's that little prick Jesse, isn't it? I knew you two were screwing around!"

He still had her against the wall and Rachel was frightened by his anger. "It's not Jesse. Please, just let me leave. I won't tell anyone."

"Who is it?" Mr. Ellis demanded, grabbing her arm roughly.

"A boy from school," Rachel squeaked out. She tried to wrestle her arm free but Mr. Ellis's grip tightened.

"You fucking whore!" His voice rang out seconds before his fist landed across her cheek, just under her eye. The force of the punch caused her head to slam hard into the wall. Mr. Ellis caught her by the arm again before her body could go limp and slide to the floor. He pulled her against him and shook her tiny body. The violent movement and the hit her head took made Rachel nauseous. "You ungrateful little slut! You think some school boy can offer you what I can? You think he can replace me? Does he make you come like I do?" Mr. Ellis sneered, his face only inches away from hers.

Rachel kept her hand pressed against her bruised cheek, too shocked to lower it. He had slapped and shaken her a few times when she wouldn't readily comply, but he had never hit her with such unadulterated force before. "No, no that's not what I meant. He doesn't. We don't...we haven't done anything like that. I just," she stammered.

"Good." Mr. Ellis turned them both so that Rachel's back was to his desk and walked her into it, bending her body back over the wooden surface. Once Rachel was mostly lying back on the desk, he pulled her hand from her face and brushed his thumb across the freshly forming bruise. "Why did you make me hurt you?" he asked almost apologetically. "Why did you have to go and be such a goddamn slut?"

Mr. Ellis leaned down over her and replaced his thumb with his lips and began to trail kisses down her jawline and to her neck.

When he started to tug down her jeans Rachel wondered why she ever thought her having a boyfriend would make him stop. If her cries and pleas weren't enough, her relationship status surely wasn't going be.

She was thinking about how she'd have to break up with Finn now, how she'd have to give up another part of herself, when she realized he wasn't stopping with her jeans. He was pulling her panties down with the denim. "What are you doing?" she asked in a shaky voice. He never completely stripped her before, usually he just slipped his hand inside her underwear or pushed them to the side.

"I want your first time to be special, Rachel. Boys your age don't know how to treat a girl," Mr. Ellis told her as he drew back slightly to work his own pants open.

First time. "No! Stop!" Rachel hurled herself forward and tried to slip out from under his arm, but he grabbed her around the waist and threw her back onto the desk so hard it knocked the wind out of her. "Wait! Please, don't do this. Please! Stop! Stop it!" She hadn't begged this much since the first time he touched her.

"Shh, it'll be ok," Mr. Ellis said softly. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She heard his belt buckle clank as it opened and then the sound of his zipper lowering.

"Please don't do this this. Please," Rachel muttered hopelessly. She shut her eyes tight as she trembled beneath him in anticipation.

Mr. Ellis's mouth over Rachel's muffled the scream that ripped from her throat when he penetrated her for the first time.

"Shh, baby, relax," he whispered into her ear. He had her hands crossed at the wrists and pinned securely to the desk above her head with his left hand and his right hand was pressed firmly into her stomach, keeping her in place.

Rachel whimpered and cried out in pain when Mr. Ellis started thrusting in and out of her. She felt like her insides were being torn apart.

"There you go. You're doing great, sweetie," Mr. Ellis cooed gently against her hair.

Her cries were so loud that Mr. Ellis had to bring his right hand up to clamp over her mouth so that no one would hear. He could hear the piano in the background and knew Shelby's lesson with Jesse, Luke and Scott was probably drowning out Rachel's cries, but he didn't want to take any risks.

He finished inside of her and Rachel never felt dirtier than she did with his semen running down her thigh.

"That's my girl." He placed a delicate kiss against her lips and pulled his pants up. "I'll see you out there," he said before disappearing.

Rachel's body screamed in protest when she attempted to sit up and she had to roll over onto her side to stop the urge to vomit. Taking a deep breath she gingerly lowered her feet to the floor and pushed herself off the wooden desk. She was keenly aware of the sticky substance between her legs, a mixture of Mr. Ellis's semen and her blood, but she made no attempt to clean herself off. She needed to get out of there immediately. Pulling her panties and jeans up in one swift tug she hissed at the pain emanating from below.

Rachel rushed out the office and through the backstage corridors to the stage door. She got about ten feet from the building when she lurched forward and started to retch and vomit onto the pavement.

A hand on her back startled Rachel into spinning around to see Shelby with her cellphone pressed to her ear. She dropped her head and shook her hair in front of her face so Shelby wouldn't notice the bruise forming on her face.

Shelby thanked the babysitter and ended the call in a rush. "Sweetie, what's wrong? Are you sick?"

Rachel shrugged Shelby's hand from her back and wiped a hand across her mouth. She glared at the woman with a look of contempt and betrayal as she started to retreat. Abruptly, she turned and broke into a run towards the Columbus bus depot.

Shelby called after her to no avail. Concerned and confused, she went back inside to seek some answers. She found Mr. Ellis in the front of the theater and asked about Rachel's condition.

"I was trying to talk to her about her schooling schedule so I could figure out when would be a good time to add a couple of extra rehearsals to our calender, but she seemed distracted and upset," Mr. Ellis told Shelby evenly. "I think she mentioned something about a boy breaking up with her," he added for good measure. "You know how those things can seem like the end of the world to a teenage girl. Normally I wouldn't stand for that sort of unprofessionalism from one of my actors, but I guess that's what I get for going with someone so young." He shrugged and excused himself.

Shelby's mouth hardened into a thin line. Rachel was anything but unprofessional. And no matter how dramatic the girl could sometimes be, crying and vomiting seemed a little over the top for a high school break up. Shelby suspected something else was bothering Rachel, but she feared that something else might be her and she was hesitant to uncover that specific truth. She returned to the greenroom to continue her instruction with the guys but Rachel lingered on her mind.


"Rachel, sweetie? Is that you?" her father called out eagerly when he heard the front door slam closed. Rachel wasn't due home for another hour or so and he rarely got to see her during the week anymore.

Rachel knew she looked a mess. She hadn't stopped crying since she realized what Mr. Ellis was planning on doing and she couldn't let her father see her like that. "Just a minute, Daddy," she called back, already halfway up the stairs. It would be longer than a minute but she needed to make it to the shower.

When her father came up to check on her 45 minutes later Rachel pretended to be asleep so she wouldn't have to talk to him.


Rachel skipped her first couple of classes to go to the pharmacy a town over the next morning. The pharmacist maintained poised when she nervously asked for the morning after pill.

"Just need to see some ID," the man replied.

Her brows furrowed. "I.D.?"

"Yep. Law says you have to be 17 to get the pill without a prescription," he explained.

Rachel blinked away the tears that suddenly sprang into her eyes. She had no idea what to do now.

"How old is your boyfriend?" the pharmacist asked.

She was certain the man thought she was insane when she bursted into tears at his question.

"I was just asking because if he's 17 or older he can come in here and get the pill for you. Or you can go to the planned parenthood and get a prescription yourself. Ok? Don't cry, you still have time," he told her quickly.

Rachel ended up waiting four hours to be seen at the clinic and had to scrap her plans to go into school late. It was almost three o'clock when she was finally headed back into the pharmacy with a prescription for emergency contraception. The same pharmacist from earlier offered her a warm smile when he spotted her on the other end of the counter.

"Got everything all sorted out?" he asked.

She pushed the small white slip of paper across the counter with a shy nod. Twenty minutes later she was boarding a bus back to Lima with a white paper bag tucked neatly under her arm. She swore the elderly couple sitting across from her knew what was in the bag and were scowling at her.

"Didn't take you for much of a bus rider, Rachel."

Rachel snapped her head up to take notice of the duo standing in front of her.

"Mercedes, Kurt," she uttered, nervously adjusting the large dark sunglasses on her face. "What are you guys doing here?"

Mercedes helped herself to the seat besides Rachel while Kurt hung onto the metal rod running across the top of the bus for support.

"My dad took away my car after I fell asleep at Blaine's and didn't call," Kurt explained with an eye roll. "So decided to skip school today, did we?"

"I, uh, wasn't feeling well," Rachel answered.

"Well enough to go out shopping though?" Mercedes asked skeptically gesturing to the paper bag in Rachel's hands. "So what was so important you had to skip school to get it?" She grabbed at the bag, but Rachel quickly snatched it back, tearing the flimsy paper in the process. The small cardboard box fell into Mercedes' lap and before Rachel could react the other girl caught sight of the label. "Plan B One Step?" Mercedes read aloud. "Rachel, what are you doing with the morning after pill?"

"I..I..you shouldn't have done that!" Rachel shrieked, grabbing for the box and shoving it into her purse. "You had no right to invade my privacy like that!"

Mercedes regarded the girl curiously. Rachel was bordering on hysterical. Her hands were practically shaking and her voice was high and shrill. "I'm sorry, Rachel. I thought it was a CD or something."

"Morning after pill? But Finn said you two weren't having sex," Kurt added.

"Well, he lied," Rachel returned quickly. She couldn't think of any other explanation that would work. "We had intercourse yesterday and he didn't have a condom, thus the reason why I wasn't at school today and why I have this pill. I think one teen pregnancy is enough for the glee club. I was just trying to be responsible."

Kurt frowned down at her. "Finn didn't say anything about it." Actually, Kurt didn't remember Finn even mentioning seeing Rachel yesterday and he was sure Rachel had rehearsal on Wednesdays anyway. He supposed they could have done it during or immediately following school, although the thought made Kurt cringe a little. Or maybe Rachel got out of rehearsal early and Finn snuck off to see her. He had fallen asleep pretty early so it was possible he just didn't notice his step-brother's absence. But no matter when it happened, Finn had definitely not shared it with him. Despite his earlier reluctance, Kurt actually liked being Finn's confidant. It was the most brotherly they had acted since their parents married.

"That's because we agreed not to tell anyone," Rachel said primly. "So if you two will please respect that decision, I'd appreciate it."

"Sure, Rachel. But is everything ok? You're acting kind of funny," Mercedes pried carefully.

Rachel made it a point to smile at her friends and appear composed. "Absolutely. Just being cautious," she answered. Her stop arrived soon and she bid farewell to her fellow glee club members with all the normalcy she could manage.

"Well that was weird," Mercedes noted as Rachel exited the bus. "Even for her."


Kurt wasted no time in approaching Finn when he got home. If Finn was so torn up over the incident a couple nights ago, why would he have sex with Rachel when she was clearly no more ready than she was during the blow job debacle? It had only been two days.

"You had sex with Rachel even though you knew she wasn't ready?" Kurt accused harshly as he bursted into his brother's bedroom.

Maybe if he had taken a second to knock or look around he would have noticed Puck sitting on the carpet in front of Finn's bed playing X-box.