She hadn't known what to expect for the trial. She'd thought that she'd have to sit in a little box, with a judge towering over her and yelling questions. Or maybe they'd let Finn ask the questions, even though both Emma and Sugar had told her that wasn't the way these sorts of trials worked. She didn't know; she'd never been to one before. She'd watched a court show or two when she was younger, at her parents' house, but she was pretty sure even then that that wasn't the way real life worked.

Then again, Quinn was growing ever surer that her own life wasn't the way real life was supposed to work.

She certainly hadn't expected for Finn to be this close, so close that she could smell his cologne and the underlying hint of soap. So close that she could see his eyes, the nervous, uncertain way they would flick in her direction then back down to the table again, as if he was afraid – or ashamed – to be caught looking at someone who was "beneath" him. She hadn't expected the fear, the revulsion that had welled up within her at knowing that the man who had tormented her for years was now, once again, within mere feet of her.

She hadn't expected to find herself hating him.

The only thing that gave her comfort, even more than sitting with Emma on one side and her lawyer on the other, was knowing that Miss Rachel was also a few feet away, sitting in the gallery with Lana and watching her with kind, proud, protective eyes.

Miss Rachel had kept the blanket fort up for a few days, and she and Quinn had slept in it the night previously – but only after Miss Rachel had bought an air mattress.

"You're not sleeping on the floor," she'd said, a determined look in her eyes that made Quinn fall in love with her just a little more.

She hadn't really been able to get much sleep; she'd tossed and turned with images of the trial not letting her close her eyes for more than a few moments. Finally Miss Rachel had had enough – they both needed to rest so they would be in top form, she'd said, her voice gentle but authoritative. She'd held Quinn close in her arms and sang into her ear, softly, soothingly, until finally Quinn was able to settle down and get a few hours of sleep.

Nothing had really prepared her for seeing Finn in the courtroom. Even having Rachel on one side, Emma, Lana, and Sugar on the other, did little to quell Quinn's nerves. The moment she saw him, it all came rushing back.

And then, listening to the reasons for why he had done what he had… was that enough? She found herself wondering. Would it all excuse what he had done to her? She hated that for a brief moment while listening to Finn's testimony, her heart had ached for him. The little boy, his family in turmoil and ultimately being abandoned by the father… She could only imagine what Finn had gone through, what he had thought, how he must have blamed himself. For just a few minutes, Quinn could see the scared boy that Finn had been. And yet, the boy that he had been was quickly overshadowed by the instruments he had used, the angry scowl of his voice as he beat her. The pain, the bruises, the broken bones…

But at least that's why she was there – to give voice to her own worst memories.

They had decided that, rather than having Quinn prepare her own statement, she was better at questioning, a call-and-response testimony that kept her head clear and focused, and her answers concise. So Sugar Motta's voice was soft, gentle as she asked the first question.

"Quinn, what was it like when you first met Finn Hudson?"

She hadn't been sure about Sugar at first. There was something too flighty about her, a goofiness that had made Quinn wonder if the thin lawyer with the outlandish clothes was really dedicated to her case. But Emma had sworn by her, and the loud chomping of gum while she pored over the notes to Quinn's case was offset by the look of sheer determination in Sugar's eyes, and that had made her feel better. Plus she had seen the tender way Sugar had interacted with her submissive when her boy had brought them all lunch one day, and that had done even more for Quinn's trust.

"He was nice," Quinn admitted, toying with the hem of her shirt and looking down at the table. "I saw him… a couple of times when we were kids and he always seemed nice. Really… tall."

Across from her, Finn snorted, and Quinn smiled a little.

In another life, would they have known each other? If they hadn't been matched up by her parents and his – before his father left – would they have ever run into each other? On the street, or in a crowded supermarket. Would she have been charmed by his eyes, by the smile that only seemed to lift one side of his face, by his awkwardness hidden under a sense of false bravado?

Or would she have known to stay away from him? Would she have known that he wasn't a "nice boy," as her mother had said; that instead he was a spoiled child who made himself out to always be the victim? That he would try to sway Quinn to feel sorry for him even as he was hurting her, that it was, and would always be, only about Finn's happiness, Finn's dreams, Finn's goals (or lack of), everything Finn wanted?

Perhaps she would've met Miss Rachel first. Quinn glanced back out to the gallery and smiled, seeing her in the front row again, watching them. Quinn had been scared when Miss Rachel had run out, afraid that she wouldn't come back. It didn't matter that Emma was on one side of her and Miss Motta on the other; Quinn only ever felt really safe knowing Miss Rachel was there with her.

"Can you tell us what your first day with him as your Dominant was like?"

She'd known this was coming. Emma had held her as she cried, the first time she'd described what that day had been like with him. But it was different, telling one person. How was she meant to describe it to a room full of people? But Quinn took a deep breath and focused on Miss Rachel, who gave her yet another reassuring smile.

"He was nice, at first," she explained. "We were both… nervous. I mean we were just sixteen and I don't think he was very sure of himself so I knelt d-down and I said that I would help him as much as I could, that I was there for Sir, that I was his."

"And what did he do?"

Quinn shook her head. "I-I can't-"

Emma's hand closed over hers and squeezed, and Quinn glanced at her gratefully. She wasn't Miss Rachel, but it helped.

"We need you to," Miss Motta said gently. "What did Finn do when you knelt for him and expressed your desire to help him?"

She closed her eyes.

"He slapped my face and said he didn't need my help. Then he adjusted my stance because he didn't like the way I was kneeling, and I had to stay that way for a while. An hour or two."

"Will you tell us what your life was like, from that day on?"

Quinn sighed. "Have you ever felt," she said quietly, "like no matter what you do, you'll never get it right? No matter how much of a g-good girl you try to be, it isn't good enough? I tried so hard, and I always made a mess of things. I didn't kneel right. I didn't cook his favorite things well. I was too smart, then too dumb. I talked too much, didn't talk enough. Didn't cry, screamed too loud, I was too n-needy. Nothing I ever did was good enough for him."

"Okay," Miss Motta said, carefully stopping the flow of words that threatened to send Quinn out of control. She breathed in, shakily, and concentrated on the table again.

She was glad that Sugar had said she wouldn't ask any sexual questions; Quinn wasn't sure she could handle those, not yet anyway. It was hard enough to talk to Miss Rachel about things like that, even if things between them were growing steadily more intense with each passing day. It was getting even harder for Quinn to deal with her emotions, things she'd never felt before, wasn't even sure she was allowed to feel. Things like need. Desire. Miss Rachel was always telling Quinn to be open with her feelings, but sex… wasn't anything that was ever discussed in the Fabray household, and in the Hudson household it was more of… a chore. Something that had to be done to keep him happy.

To close her eyes as he always took her from behind, because he said looking at her face ruined the mood.

At least it had never lasted long. At least he had never lasted long.

Miss Motta moved on to the questions about Finn's physical treatment of her. The beatings, the broken bones (and here she offered into evidence numerous medical reports), the missed meals. Kneeling for hours on a hard tile floor. Sleeping in a corner of a dark, cold bedroom with little more than a sheet for comfort. Being humiliated in front of his friends.

Quinn told it all.

Everything she had held inside herself, kept hidden for years… it didn't matter that Miss Rachel wasn't sat right beside her. Quinn looked out into the gallery, locking her hazel eyes with the soft, tear-filled brown ones that she loved… and told it all. She took a deep breath, dug deep and quietly repeated the words to herself, the words that first Emma had told her when she'd sobbed in her arms that day, and then Miss Rachel had reiterated hours later.

It's not your fault.

"Why did you never use your safe word?"

Quinn cocked her head at Miss Motta. "Safe word?" she repeated, feeling a little dumb.

Sugar Motta nodded. "The safe word that you and Finn agreed upon."

"But we didn't," Quinn said, confused.

"You didn't have a safe word established?"

It was one of the tenets of their society, Quinn knew. Well, she knew that now. Before, she hadn't known that safe words and contracts, mutual agreements, were actually a thing. Growing up she had always been taught that her Sir was to be pleased, he was to be obeyed, and her own needs would be met if she did those things.

She wasn't told what to do if those needs weren't met.

"No, I didn't have a safe word," she answered, and once again her eyes met Miss Rachel's. "Not with Finn."

"So your contract didn't establish the usage of safe words?"

Contract. An agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified. An agreement enforceable by law.

Miss Rachel had told her that just a year before Quinn had been "matched" with Finn, the government had established that contracts were "necessary and advisable" within their society. Every couple, once a claim was made, was required to go and file a contract, with an itemized listing of rules and regulations, the safe words that were to be used, and punishments that would be enforced within the context of the relationship. It was meant to facilitate stronger protection for submissives; Miss Rachel's voice had grown sad when she said that she wasn't sure it had worked. If it had, there wouldn't have been a need for places like McKinley House.

Quinn shook her head. "We didn't have a contract."

Sugar's hand paused over the paper on which she was scribbling notes and she glanced at Quinn, then at Finn. "No contract?"

It was all for effect, Quinn knew. They'd been over this before; Miss Motta knew there had been no safe words, no contract. Nothing in writing to establish Quinn's role in the relationship, nothing that outlined how Finn ought to care for Quinn, and how she should respond in kind. It was Sugar's plan of attack: show that Finn, while not caring for Quinn and being abusive, had also actually broken the law. This, she said, would virtually guarantee their win.

Quinn wasn't sure about that; Judge Schuester looked like he was ready to fall asleep.

"No contract."

"No safe word?"

"No," Quinn said again. "I had no safe word, and no contract. I didn't… have anything."

"So how did you keep safe?"

Quinn sighed, and shook her head again. "Obviously I didn't," she said, unable to keep the slight edge from creeping into her voice. She looked over at Finn, and her heart plummeted a little when she saw the smirk on his face.

It was the smirk he always wore, just before… she curled her fingers against the table, grasping lightly and reminding herself of the other thing Miss Rachel and Emma had told her.

He can't hurt you.

"So you lived in a relationship with a man who broke the law by refusing to employ a contract and safe words, and subsequently abused you frequently? We could even say, every day of your life with him."

Quinn nodded. "Yes."

Sugar Motta gestured toward Mr. Anderson-Smythe, effectively ending her questioning of Quinn.

She steeled herself as he smiled at her. He was pleasant enough, Quinn decided, but that didn't mean he wasn't still the enemy.

"Miss Fabray," he said easily, "Could you tell us about the house you shared with Finn Hudson, please?"

She resisted rolling her eyes, wondering if every lawyer was an expert in redundancy. "He was never happy," she began to explain again. "Nothing I ever did was right, no matter how ha—"

"No," Finn's lawyer interrupted, and Quinn flinched slightly at his raised voice. "I am referring to the house itself. What was it like?"

Quinn drew back a little, confused. "Okay, I guess?" she said uncertainly. "A little small?"

"Not as nice as the one you grew up in?"

"No," Quinn answered, suddenly a little nostalgic for the large house with its big rooms and soft couches, even softer beds with snuggly blankets. She still wasn't sure where Anderson-Smythe was going with his line of questioning, but she already wished he'd stop. The last thing she wanted to remember during a trial was her former home. Her parents – she hadn't heard from them in years. And her grandfather…

She missed him so much. He'd have protected her.

"So the house was small." Quinn was sure that the man with the perfect hair and dapper bow tie meant to be kind, but his voice was condescending, as if he were talking to a small child. You're probably a bratty sub, Quinn thought, and not the kind Miss Rachel seems to like. Probably one that throws a temper tantrum every time something doesn't go your way.

"Was it also comfortable?"

"Yes?"

If Blaine Anderson-Smythe detected any malice in Quinn's answer, he didn't let on as he continued. "Warm in the winter, cool in the summer?"

"Yes."

"You stated that Mr. Hudson would sometimes make you sleep on the floor." Quinn nodded, not bothering to verbally respond. She'd already stated as much. "Were you naked when you slept on the floor?"

"Sometimes."

"But the house was warm."

"Yes."

"Were you given a pillow, a sheet?"

"A pillow. And a sheet. Sometimes a blanket in the winter."

"And you stated that every now and then he'd let you sleep on the bed."

"The foot of the bed," Quinn clarified, adding in a mutter, "Like a dog."

Anderson-Smythe nodded, seeming thoughtful, and then smiling at Quinn again. "Were you ever homeless, Miss Fabray?"

Her brow furrowed. "I don't understand—"

He interrupted her again, leaning forward, and Emma put a reassuring hand on her shoulder as Quinn scooted her chair back an inch.

"In the time that you were with Mr. Hudson, did he ever force you out onto the street, were you ever homeless?"

"No?" Was there a point to all this, Quinn wondered.

But then, with Blaine Anderson-Smythe's next question, his defense of Finn Hudson became clear.

"Quinn, would you ever say that you deserved your punishments?"

Her mouth dropped open a little. "W-what?"

That same damned smile, mirrored by the smirk on Finn's face. "You're a submissive," his lawyer said smoothly. "Your dominant owns you; his duty is to train you, to make you your better self, to punish you whenever you don't live up to his expectations. Did you live up to his expectations?"

"I-I didn't deserve it," Quinn said shakily. "Not that- not what he-"

"So everything you did was correct?" his lawyer pressed. "You were always good, always obedient, you never smarted off to him, you never broke a rule, and you never left him dissatisfied?"

She could feel the panic start to rise, the endless doubt that had been ever present each day for the last few years, that had only just began to fade, with the persistent gentleness and care of Miss Rachel. The feeling that she was always wrong, that she was bad and disobedient, a horrible sub, because she could never do anything right.

"I-I tried," Quinn said, hearing that her voice was bordering on pleading. "Every day I tried, to do what he wanted to, and I couldn't—I never—"

"So you admit it, then?" His smile seemed almost feral now, menacing, and when had he stood up, leaning forward on the table, almost towering over her despite how short he was?

"You admit that you were a less than acceptable submissive. You admit that Finn Hudson frequently had to correct you in ways he saw fit, ways that were permissible because he is your Dominant."

Now Judge Schuester was sat up in his chair, his expression rapt as he listened to Anderson-Smythe attack Quinn with gusto.

"You admit that though he was severe, though he may have punished you in ways you didn't like, that it wasn't always about you, it was sometimes about Finn, as a good relationship should be. And the fact that you were never lacking for food, for clothing, for adequate and comfortable housing. And the fact that he was actually a very good Dominant, dedicated to you and your well-being, dedicated to training you in the best way he knew ho—"

"He wasn't a good Dominant!" Quinn snapped, slamming her hand onto the table. "Not like Miss Rachel!"

She was aware that the room had gone quiet. That Schuester seemed suddenly interested in her, as did two men in suits sitting in the back of the room. That Emma had softly sworn "Oh, fuck" under her breath, and that Miss Rachel was suddenly fidgeting in her seat and Lana had placed a steadying hand on her knee.

The gesture made her irrationally jealous, but Quinn plowed forward, her trembling voice suddenly loud and echoing in the silent court chamber.

"He beat me every day," she said. "Until I cried, until I screamed. He broke… my bones. Me. I-I didn't deserve that. And Miss Rachel—"

"Quinn," Sugar put her hand on Quinn, but Quinn shook it off with a glare.

"She's good. She's good and gentle and even when I'm ba—even when I'm naughty she's still soft when she corrects me. She puts me in the corner or… she made me scrub the floor two days ago but she sat in the kitchen with me. She doesn't beat me, ever, and she won't."

"She's nothing like you," she spat out toward Finn. "I may not be a good submissive but you're not a good Dominant either. Not like her. Not like my Miss Rachel."

She fell quiet then, hating the way Anderson-Smythe quirked one extremely forest-resembling eyebrow and said to Judge Schuester, "I believe I have made my case, Your Honor."

The words dismissing them for a recess while he rendered his decision barely registered to Quinn's ears; she sat numbly in her seat as Emma and Sugar stood up and tried to coax her to go out into the hallway with them. Quinn couldn't shake the feeling that she'd done something horribly wrong, because everyone was looking at her strangely and even Miss Rachel seemed unnaturally pale as she came up and took Quinn's hand, pulling her to her feet and leading her out into the hall with the others.

"M-Miss Rachel?" Quinn queried softly, but the smaller woman shushed her with a finger against her lips and a tender look.

"I am so proud of you," Miss Rachel said, and Quinn relaxed when she pulled her into a hug. Quinn rested her chin on Miss Rachel's shoulder and breathed in, letting out most of the tension she'd felt since that morning.

"Really?"

"Really," Miss Rachel assured her, her hand in Quinn's hair. "You were so brave up there, and you didn't back down." She kissed Quinn's cheek gently.

"You were such a good girl."

"You did good, kid," she heard Emma say, and felt the light thump on her back, and Quinn giggled. She nuzzled further into Miss Rachel, tightening her arms around her, enjoying the closeness and the comfort… until she heard an unfamiliar sound, a strange clearing of a throat.

She backed away from Miss Rachel slowly, feeling the panic again as they both were confronted with the two men in suits, who had been sitting in the back row.

Miss Rachel had stiffened, though her arm was still firm and secure around Quinn's waist as she regarded the men.

"I hadn't expected to see you here," she said easily, casting a glance to her side as Jesse and Anderson-Smythe walked past them, Finn in between.

"She is a member of McKinley House, of course we would be here," one of the men replied, looking down at Rachel.

"She is Quinn Fabray," Miss Rachel said, and Quinn felt a swell of pride.

She was Quinn Fabray.

The other man nodded coolly, regarding Miss Rachel, before saying, "We'll see you tomorrow in our office, Miss Berry. I'm sure you know what we'll be discussing."

Miss Rachel rolled her eyes as they walked away. "Of course they wouldn't stay for the verdict," she said through gritted teeth. "It's not like they actually care for Quinn's well-being. It's all for show with them."

"Rachel," Lana said, a warning tone in her voice. "Now is not the time to make enemies of your bosses."

Bosses? Quinn drew away slightly as the realization dawned on her.

The men were Miss Rachel's bosses at the Society. Her government bosses. And Quinn had just blurted out about her Miss Rachel…

"Oh, no," she whispered with a feeling of dread. "I-I didn't—Miss Rachel, I didn't mean to do anything wrong, I'm sorry!"

"No, no, Quinn," Miss Rachel said firmly, even though her voice shook ever so slightly. "You didn't do anything wrong, little one." She led Quinn over to a bench and sat down with her, gently rubbing her back.

"You didn't do anything wrong," she repeated. "And they can't do anything to me."

Quinn looked at Miss Rachel, doubtful. The way everyone seemed to be acting strange, acting worried, and the way even Miss Rachel's face looked pinched and strained seemed to tell an entirely different story.

"Everything's going to be fine," Miss Rachel said, and pulled Quinn closer to her.

"Do you think he'll… do you think I did okay?"

"I know you did okay," Miss Rachel said. "You did more than okay."

Quinn smiled faintly. "But do you think it was enough?"

"Quinn, Rachel," Sugar said, coming down the hall toward the door to the courtroom, followed a few steps behind by Jesse, Finn, and Finn's lawyer. "Come on, we're back in session."

Quinn sat up in shock. They'd only been recessed for ten minutes. It was too early…

Miss Rachel glanced at her, and Quinn knew that she felt the same way. It was too early.

"I guess we're about to find out, little one."