Trigger warnings for discussions of physical and sexual abuse. Nothing terribly graphic, but still there.


Chapter 29 – Arc of Time
Santana P.O.V.

"What's going on?"

That question seems to be the defining theme of my life as of late.

I had been brought into the Radiology unit to try to soothe Rachel's fears, but by the looks of things, I had failed at even that.

Dr. Medina had been ready to sedate Rachel, noting my failed attempts at comfort, but then Rachel had thrashed away and gone limp anyway. The thing was, it had happened before the doctor or her needle could even get close.

Now, the machines attached to Rachel are blaring a frantic lullaby. Doctors and nurses run around trying to stop them, trying to help my sister. In the middle of it all, there is just me.

Everybody ignores me. Dr. Medina doesn't even seem to notice me. Instead, she elbows past me to get to Rachel. She flips up the edges of my sister's hospital gown. The first thing that I notice are the bandages that line her torso, covering up the evidence of Andrew's abuse. The second thing that I notice is the tube that had been sitting peacefully inside of Rachel's side only seconds ago is now sitting in a puddle of blood and chaos, pooling underneath Rachel.

The doctor presses a bandage against the hole left in the tube's wake and tapes it closed but the machines don't stop beeping and before I know it, she is at Rachel's head shoving a tube down her throat and pumping a bag to breathe for her. Even then, the alarms will not stop.

"Santana, you need to go back to the waiting room." She is talking to me again, like she is only just remembering I am here bearing witness to all of this. I was supposed to help Rachel. Instead, I made everything worse.

My brows slant outward. I feel my eyes widen. I look at Rachel, whose eyes are closed. She looks dead. Is she dead? My heart is pounding inside of my throat, begging for answers.

"Is she going to be okay?" I swallow. I don't even recognize my voice.

"Your sister is probably going to need surgery," the doctor insists. She is speaking very quickly. I appreciate her taking the time to keep me informed in between trying to save Rachel's life. "I need you to go back downstairs and wait with your mom. I will come out to talk to you as soon as I can."

I feel a tug at my arm, pulling me out of the room. In a distinct act of betrayal, my feet follow. I force myself to look over my shoulder towards Rachel the entire time. A crowd of bodies are moving frantically around her. Everybody is trying to do what they can to help. I was supposed to help, but I couldn't.

"Your sister will be well taken care of," the woman who is holding onto my elbow promises. I look away, still skeptical. "Dr. Medina will be downstairs to talk with you and your mother in a couple of minutes. Rachel just needs to be stabilized and taken for a surgical consult. The surgeon might be able to just re-insert the chest tube, but if there was any damage to Rachel's lung when it was pulled out, she will have to be taken into surgery to repair the damage."

I force myself to nod even though I don't understand anything. My head is pounding. The woman holding me sounds like this is a routine thing that happens every day, but I have never seen anything like that before in my life. I hope to God I never have to again, either.

When I spot my mother, still waiting for me in the same spot I had left her, I see the dazed mask of confusion in her face and know I must look the same. We are existing as ghosts. It is easier for the both of us to pretend we cannot feel anything rather than feel this. My mother looks tired, truly and sincerely, like she is only now realizing that the world around her can go so sour she cannot even imagine setting it right again.

When my mother sees me coming, she jumps to her feet. She sees the tears in my eyes and her face settles into stone. I'll kill whoever did this to you. That is what it says. That fierce, protective rage flashes inside of her eyes for a split second but then, she remembers that I can see it and her expression softens.

"Santana…" she breathes, rational, calm. "Are you okay?"

I nod my head, but the fact that I can't say anything through the tears in my eyes exposes my lie.

"Hey, come here…" My mother beckons me forward. I sink into her chest. I am pretty sure I have let her hold me more times today than I have done in my entire life.

"I didn't mean to keep it from you, mom." The apology just sort of slips out.

"Shh, I know you didn't baby. It's not your fault," she assures me and squeezes me tighter as I try and fail to stop blubbering. I feel a strange combination of both embarrassed and satisfied.

"We just… we wanted to make you happy."

"Santana Muirgheal Corcoran, you listen to me," my mother tells me sternly, tipping my chin up with long, precious fingers so that I am facing her. "Nothing in this world makes me happier than seeing you girls safe. He is not going to touch you ever again. Now come on, sit down."

I let her guide me into a chair and fall into it purposefully. I hunch forward, rolling my shoulders as my mother occupies the seat next to me. My fingers knit together, creating a tight ball. I am still trying to process everything that I just saw in that MRI room when my mother inevitably asks me to explain myself.

"What happened in there, Santana?"

Her question sounds like a sad song. My mother has a powerful voice, but no note I have ever heard her sing has ever reached me quite that deep before.

Thirty minutes ago, a technician had approached us, informing us that Rachel was making requests for her family to be at her side, and the doctor agreed it might be for the best. My mother was up and out of her seat in a heartbeat. Only then did the tech mention that it was me specifically who Rachel was asking for.

Me. Not her.

The way my mother had fallen back into her chair, trying to conceal her jealousy nearly broke me.

"Whatever is best for Rachel," she forced herself to tell me, but the sincerity fell just short.

"I couldn't calm her down," I choke. I am having a hard time telling her what it had felt like to watch Rachel go limp, how her body had looked like a corpse, how even though Dr. Medina had shoved a tube down her throat, pumping oxygen into her lungs for her, she was still turning blue while the alarms droned on and on and on. "She kept trying to pull away. She was afraid. She pulled her chest tube out. The doctor says she might need surgery."

"Surgery?" my mother questions, horrified. I watch all of the blood rush from her face until she is almost as pale as Rachel was the last time I had seen her. "For what?"

"I don't know," I sob. She is asking questions that I cannot answer. I am not a doctor. I couldn't even keep Rachel calm.

"They can't just do something like that without letting me know first!" My mother's brows furrow. Her ferocity is misplaced. She is the type of person whose comfort is measured by her level of control. She possesses a resistance to chaos and can barely function when presented with it. To compensate, she needs somebody to be angry at, somebody to blame. It easier to focus it on someone else, then it is not her.

I watch her rise from her seat like she is about to storm into Radiology and confront Rachel's doctors smack in the middle of them trying to stabilize her. It is the last thing any of us needs right now, particularly Rachel. I understand that having such little say in your child's medical care must be frustrating, but I also know that Rachel doesn't need a group of disgruntled doctors working to save her life.

"Mom," I warn. My voice seems to snap something inside of her. She freezes like she only now remembers her place. Her face falls slightly as she looks at me. I offer her the smallest shake of my head. Miraculously, that is all it takes to convince her to take her seat.

"I'm sure they'll tell us what is going on soon." I attempt a little bit of optimism, but I am not sure how convincing I sound. The long, drawn out sigh that my mother responds with tells me the answer in itself.


Much to my disappointment, Dr. Lynch finds me before Dr. Medina can even come out to tell me and my mother whether Rachel is even alive or not. She is cheerful and bright and despite the fight that I put up against going for x-rays, my mother is a mess and ultimately, I resolve to go get checked out because that is the thing that is keeping her from walking totally over the edge right now.

After, when I am told that nothing is broken like I have been saying all along, I rush through the discharge process. I sign my own paperwork without even reading it. It is the first official thing that I have done on my own as the adult I seem to have only become on paper. I can't even do that right.

Rushing back into the hallway, I easily navigate my way back to my mother. I find her in the exact same place I had left her. She wears a sullen expression of utmost concentration, but she is not alone. Standing square-shouldered, prompting my mother to sign some paperwork is Dr. Medina.

I take the rest of my journey at a run, striving to get the information faster.

"Where is Rachel? Is she okay?" I shout down the hallway when I am within earshot. My mother jumps when she hears me. The paperwork in her hand slips out of her lap and scatters across the floor.

"Santana," she breathes, flustered as she attempts to pick up her mess. "What are you doing here? Are you all done? What did the doctor say?"

She asks a thousand questions at a mile a minute, torn between getting the answers from me, even though she knows I am fine, and continuing to press Dr. Medina for information on Rachel, who she doesn't know is fine at all.

"I'm fine mom," I insist quickly. "Nothing is broken, it's only a bad bruise, it will heal on its own. Now, what's going on with Rachel?"

I punch through a brief summary of what Dr. Lynch had told me because it is enough information to satisfy my mother yet is quick enough that we can get back to talking about Rachel.

"We just took Rachel into surgery," Dr. Medina nods. She is speaking only to me. My mother already knows. "We managed to stabilize her, however, the scan showed that the damage to her lung was too severe to be fixed by just a chest tube. Even before Rachel pulled the tube out, it would have only been a temporary fix. The surgeons will repair Rachel's lung manually and they will stabilize her rib fractures so that they don't pull down on her chest wall and cause more damage. While Rachel is under anesthesia, an orthopedist will also set the breaks in her arm and insert pins in her wrist. I was just having your mother sign all of the consent forms."

"But Rachel is going to be okay, right?" I press, my face wrinkling with worry. I don't understand a lot of the things the doctor just told me, but none of it sounds good. "The surgery will fix her?"

"The injuries to Rachel's chest were very serious." The doctor casts her eyes in a somber manner. It sets a foreboding tone between us that makes my own lungs pinch a little bit tighter. I wonder if this is how Rachel feels all the time. "Perhaps it would be best if we talked about the details in private."

The moment she says this, a small group shuffles past us. None of them seem to be paying any attention to our conversation but still, the doctor is tactful, wary of anybody catching a glimpse into our most private of affairs.

"Of course," my mother nods, appreciative of the suggestion as Dr. Medina guides us into a room.

I squint, my eyes taking a moment to adjust to the new lighting, which is much duller than the hallway was.

We seem to be in some sort of conference room. There is a long table in the center surrounded by several chairs. They're the comfortable chairs too, not the hard, plastic ones that they keep in the waiting areas.

"Please, sit," the doctor instructs me and my mother. I find the first chair. My mother sits directly besides me. Dr. Medina takes her time. She walks around the table, sitting across from us. I watch her and sink inside of the comfortable armchair. I don't like the implication of it. People only go out of their way to make you comfortable when they are about to tell you something you don't want to hear. I learned that from Sue Sylvester.

"Mrs. Corcoran, Santana…" the doctor speaks with a heavy tone like she regrets having to be the one to crush us with the weight of all of this. "Like I mentioned earlier, Rachel is stable right now. At this time, there is nothing to suggest that she will not physically recover from her injuries. At the same time, they were extensive. The healing process will not be easy on Rachel by any means. Her injuries indicate a pattern of weeks, maybe even months of severe abuse."

My face shines bright red. I am expecting to hear this, but the idea that Rachel's body has taken the brunt of our secret so badly floods me with shame. I fold my hands across the wooden table and beg myself not to cry. I can't look at the doctor. I especially can't look at my mother, whose face seems to break a little bit more every time the doctor opens her mouth.

"I know this must be difficult to hear," the doctor acknowledges after a moment of silence. "But the evidence presented is hard to ignore. Like I mentioned earlier, the most serious injuries were the ones to Rachel's chest. We found four rib fractures in total, two on the right side and two on the left. Now, the ones on the left were the most severe. They were complete fractures of her sixth and seventh ribs. They fragmented off and punctured her lung, which resulted in the lung and surrounding area to fill up with air and blood. It is what caused her lung to collapse, and it is what caused the damage that Rachel was just brought up to surgery to fix. Those two fractures, they happened today. The fractures on the right side however, were smaller, incomplete fractures. They were likely painful, but Rachel could have lived with them. There was evidence of scar tissue and callous bone formation. It suggests to me that they date back weeks."

The little color that is left in my mother's cheeks blanches out, but she remains dutifully silent, committed to listen.

"Now, because these old fractures remained untreated, and were likely reaggravated over time, Rachel had a lot of fluid building up inside of her right lung. What happened was that fluid just sat there. It left Rachel very susceptible to infection. She was brought to the ER this afternoon with a low-grade fever. It wasn't anything terribly dangerous, but with her left lung weakened by the injury, Rachel is at a high risk for developing pneumonia. We inserted a drain in the ER to remove as much of the fluid as possible, but we will still need to keep an eye out for signs of the infection worsening. Rachel's lungs are just not strong enough to heal on their own right now. When she comes out of surgery, she will likely have a chest tube in each of her lungs. The surgeon will probably want to keep her intubated for an additional period of time to give her lungs a break. She will be sedated for the duration of that time, but when she does wake up, she will be in a significant amount of pain. You should prepare yourselves."

The doctor drifts off, allowing us to soak this information in. Rachel, our Rachel, known for having the strongest lung capacity of them all is now relying on surgery and tubes just to keep her body alive.

"What are we looking at?" my mother asks. She pauses and swallows, searching for a way to get the words out through her impossibly dry mouth. "What are we looking at in terms of complications? You said that she is susceptible to infection? How will we know if that's the case?"

"We will be monitoring Rachel very closely," the doctor explains. "She will be on a very strong broad-spectrum antibiotic as a precaution but still, we will be looking at her temperature as well as the amount of oxygen that is getting into her blood. If any of her numbers change, we will know the second it happens, and we will be ready to act."

"But what should I be looking for?" My mother's face falls. She jabs her index finger hard into her sternum like she is begging the doctor to give her a task to make her feel less useless.

I stare at Dr. Medina, waiting for her answer. I watch her pause, pursing her lips like she is thinking very carefully about her answer.

"Any changes in Rachel's personality. Lethargy, lack of appetite, irritability… You know what Rachel's normal is better than any of us, Mrs. Corcoran. If you suspect that something is wrong, do not be afraid to let either me or one of Rachel's nurses know."

I get the impression that the doctor is only saying this because she knows how badly my mother needs to hear it, but much to her credit, it seems to work because the desperation eases slightly out of my mother's eyes. Even though she is the one who asks, she looks like she isn't entirely sure that she is qualified to observe Rachel so carefully after everything she has already missed. The doctor attempts an encouraging smile, but it misses the mark. My mother still looks terrified.

It doesn't help when the doctor is forced to take a deep breath and continue to describe the multitudes of Rachel's injuries.

There are the breaks in her left arm, from the new ones that will require pins and metal plates in her wrist and fingers, to the older ones in her upper arm that have healed incorrectly and will have to be re-broken while Rachel is in surgery. There are the welts in her side, some of which were deep enough to require stitches. There were the burns that the doctor seems to think were caused by a cigarette…

There are a lot of uncertainties in the doctor's explanation, we notice. When we ask how Rachel could have hidden a broken arm for so long, she insists that they were torque breaks, which unlike standard breaks, seem to have been created from Andrew grabbing onto her arm continuously and pulling, creating weak pockets in the bone. When we ask about the welts, she can only say that they seem to be caused by a whip-like object. A chord, a belt, who knows.

The reason for the uncertainty is that Rachel is still not talking. I look towards my mother, who will not meet my eye, and I realize that we have all been fooled by Rachel in this.

Rachel's deception is the thing that had made this grand conspiracy work from the start. I had always been the weak link in the equation. I was the one who walked around nervous and emotional and vulnerable. Rachel was the perfectionist. While she had been hurting so badly on the inside, her face showed nothing. She is stubborn in a different way from me, from most people. Rachel was never really safe. She just let me believe that I was doing a decent job to make me feel better because that is the kind of person Rachel is. She has even her own doctors running solely on assumptions.

Dr. Medina insists that they will still be able to treat Rachel, despite not knowing the source or the timeline of her injuries, however, treatment is always uncertain when it is made entirely off speculation.

The doctor quiets after that and somehow, both me and my mother know what is coming next before she even says it. I feel the room darken all around me, like even the dust particles know what to expect. The injuries that the doctor can see may be easily treatable, but what about the ones that aren't?

"Mrs. Corcoran, I am sure that you are aware that Rachel was brought into the hospital this afternoon under circumstances that lead us to believe that the abuse she faced was not strictly limited to the physical."

My mother shifts uncomfortably inside her seat. Inside of her face, all evidence of anger suddenly vanishes. Now when I look at her, all I see is anguish.

I look away, no longer able to face that broken, haunted look. I feel my shoulders begin to shudder. My eyes focus and unfocus in time with my tears. I don't want to see the pain in my mother's face. It feels violating just to have to be present while she speaks about something like this as it relates to her child.

"When we found Rachel in my bedroom this afternoon, Santana and I both noticed that her jeans were open and pulled down slightly." My mother breathes, forces her words. I have known my mother my entire life, yet for the first time, I notice that this woman, who had once had the entire Broadway community waiting in anticipation speaks without the slightest trace of pitch behind her voice. "Things were chaotic. I didn't focus on it. I was more concerned in getting Rachel to the hospital. Maybe I didn't want to think about it, but now… I can't get it out of my head. I need to know, Dr. Medina. Do you think my daughter was raped?"

The heavy silence that hangs in the air around the three of us is answer in itself.

"There were some injuries, Mrs. Corcoran," the doctor confirms. "Rachel had bruises, abrasions, and some swelling on the insides of her thighs and in her groin area. We have not been able to complete a full assessment yet as our goals are first to stabilize Rachel, but I am so sorry. My best guess based on the medical evidence presented is that yes, Rachel was the victim of some extent of sexual assault."

I feel my body weaken to the point that had I not already been sitting, I probably would have fallen. Up until this moment, I had been able to hold onto the hope that this horrible thing couldn't have possibly happened to my sister.

Next to me, my mother releases a tiny gasp as though she is still surprised that this can continue to get worse. I try to block it out, but my mind is racing now. The only thing that I can picture is that man on top of my sister and I have to resist the urge to throw up.

"We won't know anything for sure until we've had the opportunity to fully examine Rachel and speak with her," the doctor continues after a moment that she allows to let this all sink in. "I can however, speculate. It doesn't appear that any type of assault happened today, or at least in the timeline where her most extensive injuries occurred. While her abuser may have tried something, it appears that he stopped before carrying anything out. Unfortunately, the older injuries make it difficult for us to assess the extent of the abuse Rachel faced. It is hard to guess how often it happened and for how long it was going on. When we have the opportunity, a specialized team will take a look at Rachel. They are specifically trained to search for certain injuries and ask the right questions."

"A specialized team?" my mother prompts.

"Nurses who are specifically trained in the sensitive nature of the care that Rachel may require. It includes not only treating Rachel emotionally and physically but also collecting any possible evidence that can be used in the case of a trial. That includes DNA samples like hair, skin, body fluids… They will likely take the clothing that Rachel came into the ER wearing today. They might also want to take pictures of Rachel's injuries to be submitted as evidence."

A shudder rushes up my mother's spine, so hard that even I can feel it.

"Stop," she demands, silencing the doctor. She had asked the question, but this is much more information than she is capable of processing right now. "Please, stop."

I sneak a cautious glance at her through the corner of my eye. Her hands are clutching onto the edges of the table. Her fingers are so white they are practically transparent. Her face silently begs the doctor to slow down. The woman nods her head like she has received the message loud and clear.

"Mrs. Corcoran, I would like to ask you something else," the woman continues slowly. Her tone is cautious. The weight of it makes me tense all over again. "Do you know if Rachel is on any sort of contraceptive?"

My mother blanches. "Contraceptives? No! She doesn't even… She's not even… She's fourteen years old for Christ's sake."

Underneath a thin layer of pale skin, my mother's cheeks burn with the embarrassment of having to regard her youngest child in this capacity. I think about how equally mortified Rachel would be if she knew that this conversation was happening right now.

This is not the kind of thing that we discuss as a family. When I was eleven and had gotten my first period the summer before middle school, I ran to my mother screaming that I was dying. In return, I received a terrified look of abhorrence that, in retrospect, told me just how ill-prepared the woman had been for that conversation. In the end, the only thing that my mother gave me was a maxi pad and the most basic biology lesson that she could get away with. Afterwards, she had turned back into our apartment and poured herself an extra-large glass of Chardonnay to recover from the trauma of that conversation, leaving her dumbfounded, pre-teen daughter more confused than ever before.

The doctor flashes my mother a quick look as though to tell her that fourteen is not an unrealistic age where teenagers begin to consider sex. I can tell that she is trying to judge whether or not my mother is just the type of parent who chooses to take a blind eye instead of facing difficult conversations. Clearly, she just doesn't know Rachel very well.

"Rachel isn't having sex, if that's what you're asking," I interject. "She would have told me that. I know that for sure. What he did to her… if he… It would have been her first time."

I feel my eyes lose focus as the reality of my words seep through me. Suddenly, I cannot stop flashing back to my memories of my own first time with Noah. I think back to the awkward shuffling, the uncomfortable tension, the way that we had danced around each other until we finally just succumbed to our urges. I think about how, however mortifying that moment might have been at the time, that is how your first time is supposed to be.

Rachel would never have that now. Even when she inevitably did fall in love with the right person, how would her experience possibly ever compare when this would be in the back of her mind for the rest of her life?

I think about the conversation that Rachel had sparked up with me in late October, after she had caught me sneaking Noah out of my bedroom one day. I remember watching her shy face glow as she asked me about the intricacies of boys and sex. I thought that it was cute at the time, a bonding moment between sisters. Now, one particular question sticks out to me the most.

"What if somebody is coming onto you and you don't want them to?"

Had I missed her cry for help then? At the time, I had no reason to suspect that Andrew would ever do something like that to her. I thought she was just talking about Jacob Ben-Israel or some other creep from school. Should I have known better?

A soft cry escapes from between my lips at the thought, luckily masked by a question that my mother forces herself to ask.

"You… you think that it's possible that Rachel is pregnant?" I can tell that the mere idea makes my mother physically ill. I know, because it makes me physically ill too.

"I think that we have to take every precaution and act quickly while we still have the opportunity." The doctor takes my mother's question and rephrases it to sound prettier, but the implications are still there. "We drew blood from Rachel in the ER. It will check for pregnancy as well as a full STD panel however, it might still be too early for the results to be accurate. She will need to be tested continuously over a period of weeks and in some cases, years, to make sure that she suffers no long-term health detriments."

"Would you be able to do anything about it?" My mother asks, her eyes shifting nervously. "If it turns out that she is pregnant. Would you be able to stop it?"

"Emergency contraception still seems to be a viable option, Mrs. Corcoran," the doctor nods. "Based on the injuries we found, she was probably assaulted within the last two or three days. However, if that was not the first time, past experiences might present complications."

"Do you think that it may have been a… a long-term thing?" my mother asks despite herself. Her voice hiccups when she says it, yet her face remains surprisingly in control.

"There was no evidence of older injuries. The abrasions and bruises we found on Rachel all look relatively recent and like they occurred in the same time frame. Still, it will be impossible for us to say for sure until we speak to Rachel."

"Do what you can, then," my mother commands. She sounds determined. "She… she just… she can't."

Her face falters as she stutters around the proper words, falling just short of finding them. Either way, the doctor seems to understand perfectly because she nods her head sadly at my mother.

"We will still have to speak to Rachel," she insists. "It will help us get a better understanding not only about what happened but also what she wants to do next."

"What she wants to do?" my mother repeats. She sounds uncertain. "She shouldn't have to hear any of this. I don't want to hear any of this."

"I'm not saying that it won't be difficult, Mrs. Corcoran. But Rachel is old enough to understand what happened to her and what the potential side effects are. She deserves to know what is happening to her own body."

"She is a child!" My mother's volume rises, and I cringe. The doctor however, doesn't so much as blink. "She can't have a child. Not now. Not from-"

She falters suddenly, falling just short of being able to finish her sentence. In her eyes, I can see her make the connections that the protective mechanism in her brain had not allowed her to make before. This man, the one that she is now connecting such vile crimes against her daughter to is the very same man that she had allowed into her life, her children's lives, her home, her bed…

In the silence that follows, I keep my eyes trained forward because to be honest, I don't want to think about that. It is difficult enough for me to imagine what he has done with my sister non-consensually let alone to think about what he has done with my mother with her permission.

My mother's stomach gives a sharp lurch, so violent that it nearly chokes her. She reacts with a shaky breath and presses a hand to her mouth, trying to keep the contents of her stomach where they belong. Her eyes are glossed over with distress. This realization hits her like a freight train that has come to finish her off.

"Mrs. Corcoran are you okay?"

The doctor asks the question even though she must know the answer. My mother does not respond. She can't. Instead, she shakes her head slowly. Her shoulders shake, her eyes clouding with tears as she begins to swallow and dry heave at rapid intervals.

She wrenches her chair backwards. Stumbling ungracefully to her feet, she takes unsteady steps towards the door.

"I just… I need some air," she announces.

I watch my mother practically run out of the room. I watch her back as she goes. The door slams shut behind her and I feel my face sink apologetically as I turn back towards the doctor. Her face is nothing short of understanding, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

"I'm sorry." I mutter a quick apology on our behalf but stand up to follow. "I'm gonna go get her... I'm sorry."

The doctor nods patiently. I don't wait to see if she has anything to say because I am afraid that she is going to tell me something else that I don't want to hear. That my mother's lack of control is a poor representation of character in the eyes of CPS. That Rachel is beyond saving. That if only I had something sooner, this could have all been avoided…

Emerging into the hallway feels like taking that first breath of air after spending a long time underwater. My lungs had been burning, pumping for oxygen that never comes while the world fades into shades of gray and purple. That room had been so suffocating. I didn't even notice until I was free from it.

"Mom?" I call into the hallway as the door swings shut behind me, but my voice echoes. The corridor is empty.

I look to my left and then to my right. I finally spot my mother, moving quickly at a jogging pace halfway down the hall. Her motions are bow-legged and unsteady. My mother has never been the athletic type. Her emotions are making things worse. When I start to run to catch up to her, I know I will make it with ease.

"Mom wait!" I yell after her, but either she doesn't hear me, or she is ignoring me.

Thanks to my brief stint with the Cheerios, I close the gap between us quickly. I am an arm's length away from her now. I reach out to grab her shoulder but before I can get a good grip, she cuts sharply to the left. My hand clenches on nothing but air as she barrels through a door labelled Men's Bathroom.

I wedge myself into the door before she can lock it on me. The room is not spacious, but it is private, which I am grateful for. My mother does not seem to notice or to care about this luxury. In fact, she doesn't so much as pause before she is throwing herself down on her hands and knees in front of the toilet.

I hear her start to vomit violently into the water, regurgitating every last bit of information that she had just been told. She heaves and gags violently. Her fingers grip against the porcelain curve of the toilet, clutching blindly for support.

I cringe at the sight, keeping my distance. I am not sure how to approach this, so I choose to wait. I flip the lock on the bathroom door, partially to offer my mother a little bit of privacy and partially to protect what little dignity remained of our family. I do not want anybody seeing my mother like this, not when so many eyes are watching us, evaluating every microscopic detail.

When my mother is completely sated and certain that she has nothing left to give, a thick silence replaces the commotion of her being sick.

She turns slowly towards me. Strands of thick, dark hair cling to the sweat beams that have erupted across her forehead. Her eyes are purposefully avoiding mine as she stands and walks to the sink where she splashes cool water against her flushed face.

She cups her hand and guides a palmful of water to her mouth, swishing it around to get the bitter taste of her own sick off of her tongue. When she spits, the edges of her eyes crinkle in a grimace, but she doesn't try again. Instead, she reaches down and braces herself against the edges of the sink. She tucks her chin into her chest. For a long moment, she doesn't move a muscle. Water drips from her chin, blossoming against her torn blouse, but she doesn't seem to take any notice.

"Are you okay?" I ask her tentatively, only after so much time has passed that I begin to feel the familiar tug of suffocation sweep inside of my lungs.

My mother shakes her head so slowly that I hear the bones in her neck shift with every beat. I know that she can feel me staring but she still refuses to acknowledge me. It makes a wave of anger rush through me.

Since our arrival at the hospital, everything has been so hectic that I hadn't had time to pause and get really, truly angry. Now, stuck here in this tiny, dismal bathroom watching my mother retreat in a time I need her to be her strongest, I feel it.

The rage is white hot. It burns a pit deep inside of my diaphragm large enough to allow my heart to drop straight into my knees. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that I am not being fair directing all of these virulent emotions onto my mother, but seeing her like this, suddenly all I can think about are those dark months following my father's death where I had been forced to sob and beg and plead with my mother to be a mother again.

So yes, I am angry. I am angry that she never noticed when, as our mother, that is her job. I am angry because never once did she push me to tell her the truth when in the back of her mind she had to have known something was wrong. I am angry because my father is dead and because Rachel and I hadn't been enough to make up for that in my mother's eyes, which is why she had flown into the arms of a stranger in the first place. I am angry because I know I could have stopped this but didn't.

"Do you remember when you were seven years old?"

The question comes suddenly. It catches me off guard, cutting through my anger.

"What?" I ask, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

"Your father and I sent you to that sleep-away camp in New Hampshire. Rachel was still too young, she had to stay home even though you begged and pleaded with me to let her go with you." The corners of her lips twitch into a somber smile at the memory. The entire time she speaks, her eyes remain trained inside of that sink basin. "You called me on the very first night begging me to come pick you up."

"Why are you talking about this, mom?" I ask with a sigh. I watch her eyes twitch up to find mine. The look inside of them is enough to tell me her answer. Because I have no idea what else I'm supposed to say.

"Your father wanted to get in the car the second we hung up with you to drive the three hours to pick you up. I was the one who convinced him not to. Do you know what I told him? I said that if we didn't let you do this on your own, you would never know that you could."

Her eyes cross and glaze over, suddenly unfocused. I watch her squint up into the light to try to suppress her tears. Her efforts work for the most part, but a few still slip down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry that I never came to get you that night."

I suck my lower lip between my teeth and bite down hard. I understand what she is really apologizing for. It is not about her never picking me up from summer camp when I was seven years old, it is about her planting the seed that would blossom into a girl who never asked her for help again; a girl whose silence would one day destroy our entire family.

Wordlessly, my mother rips herself away from the sink. I watch her pace wildly back and forth across the small bathroom, exerting all her energy until she has no more left to spare.

She moves back towards the toilet bowl, slamming the lid down before falling on top of it. She buries her face into her palms like she is trying to physically smash all of these terrible ideas out of her head.

"I am a terrible mother," I hear her sob.

"Mom…" I breathe quietly, if only to fill the empty space that lingers in between us. I have no idea what to say.

"I just… I can't get it out of my head," she continues to ramble. I am starting to think that she hasn't even heard me. She never hears me. "I can't stop thinking about what he did to her. Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't you tell me?"

My mother looks up at me, searching for answers. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her face a tsunami of anguish. I recognize the expression. It is an animal instinct that grabs a hold of you when someone you love is being held hostage in plain sight.

"We were doing it for you," I insist, my face pinching inward.

"I am your mother!" She shouts so abruptly that I flinch. I watch her stand to her feet and jab her index finger hard into her chest like she is trying to reassure the both of us of this fact given our current situation has left her suddenly questioning it. "It is not your job to protect me. It is my job to protect you."

I cringe. I feel as though I am watching my mother literally unfold which makes me incredibly nervous about what happens next. Everything that we just went through, it is only the beginning.

"Mom, you need to calm down," I beg her. "People are watching us now. They're waiting for us to screw up. Do you have any idea what they can do? They can take Rachel away."

"I understand that, Santana, thank you," she snaps, whipping her eyes up to meet mine with a hidden fierceness that I feel strangely glad to see. This is the mother that I need to be on display right now. The woman with fire in her eyes and a strong-set jaw, emblazoned with determination. The woman willing to move the Earth across the universe and back if that is what it takes to keep Rachel safe. This is who we need.

But just as quickly as I see the expression, it smolders and extinguishes. I take a towering breath, one that moves my entire body. She is in there. Somewhere, the mother that I need is there.

"Santana, you need to talk to me," my mother pleads after a moment. "What the doctor said in there… The things that he did to Rachel… Why wouldn't you guys say anything if it was getting this bad?"

I take a deep breath and turn away from my mother. The truth is that I have been asking myself the same exact question ever since I saw Rachel lying there on the floor of my mother's bedroom. How long has Rachel been suffering the way that Dr. Medina told us she has been?

My stomach feels hollow like somebody just punched me as hard as they possible could. I try not to think like this, but the more questions my mother asks, the more I am blaming her for not seeing it when it should have been so obvious.

"You wouldn't understand," I tell her, my voice suddenly cold.

"Then make me, Santana," she begs. Her voice is desperate. "Make me understand!"

"I can't make you understand!" I roar. "Don't you get it, mom? I haven't been able to make you understand for the last eighteen years!"

I watch my mother's face twist at my words as she turns defensively away from me. I can tell just by the way that her face wrinkles just how desperately she is struggling not to cry.

"I'm sorry, okay?" she shoots back. Her voice is shaking. "I'm sorry that you have to go through this. I'm sorry that Rachel has to go through this. I'm sorry that I didn't see it sooner. Is that what you want to hear, Santana?"

I round my shoulders, watching the regret swamp through the jagged edges of my mother's solemn features. I try to convince myself to forgive her. I try to remind myself that we need to stick together right now. She doesn't need me beating her up when she is already doing enough of that for herself. But I don't feel it. I am angry, and I am scared, and I need somebody to blame. She just happens to be the one standing here.

"Sorry doesn't change anything," I tell her. I don't mean to make her feel bad. I just want her to realize that I need her to pull herself together right now. If not for herself, then for Rachel.

"It could."

I shake my head sadly. We do not have time to pick through the white lines in between all my mother's faults right now. Not here, locked inside of a men's bathroom in the middle of a hospital while Rachel is in surgery and a thousand people are looking at us to judge our competence.

"I need to get out of here," I sigh. The claustrophobia is sudden. It is overwhelming. I drop my eyes down to my feet and turn towards the door. I have to grope blindly for the lock through my tears.

"Santana-" my mother starts, like she is trying to stop me from leaving.

"Don't," I stop her before she can waste her breath. "Just don't. I just need some air, mom. I need a minute alone, okay?"

I don't wait for her to answer. If I don't leave this bathroom right now, I am afraid that my chest will explode, leaving only incomplete fragments of myself behind.

Ripping the door open, I fall out into the hallway. My feet move in short, choppy steps but do the job in moving me towards the elevator. For a moment, I am afraid that my mother might think to follow me, but she never does.

I move without direction. My feet walk on their own accord. I have no idea where I am going. Honestly, I don't particularly care just so long as it is far away from here.

I push out of the main entrance and into the bustling crowd as they weave in and out of the lobby. I have no idea how I got here, which means that by default, I have no idea how to get back, but for now, I choose not to worry about that.

"Santana!"

I am brought back to reality by the sound of my own name. I freeze right outside of the busy entryway. People jostle me from all directions, shooting me furtive glares, but I ignore them all as I turn towards the direction of the voice, watching as two familiar faces emerge through the crowd.

Quinn looks relieved that she has found me, but on top of that, she looks lost and confused and I can tell by the way she is using her elbows and pregnant stomach to shove through the crowd that she is angry about both these things. She is a portrait of control. Chaos is embedded deep inside the layers of her comfort zone. The laws of entropy have been written with her in mind. Where everybody else might panic, Quinn Fabray is at her best. I am relying on this fact to make it through the days ahead.

Noah flanks her just a step to her right. His face is slack. His muscular arms, normally in a perpetual state of flexed to try and impress any unsuspecting woman that might cross his path, hang limp at his sides. This is not the cocky football star that I am used to seeing.

When Quinn finally reaches me, it is with a force that nearly knocks me off my feet. It takes me by surprise because Quinn Fabray is not a hugger, she is a doer. Emotions impede judgement, she told me once. It strikes me that my current situation must really be dire if even Quinn is hugging me.

"Noah told me what happened," Quinn explains softly. "How are you holding up?"

I choke against Quinn's question. I want to tell her that I am falling apart, that I cannot get the image of Andrew hovering over my sister, hitting her and touching her out of my head. I want to tell her about the fight I just had with my mother, about how Rachel had looked inside of that MRI machine. I want to tell her that I feel like a tub of ice cream that has been left out in the sun too long. Seeping.

"Oh, you know," I say instead, my voice cracking.

"Don't lie to me," Quinn says sternly, narrowing her eyes. "I know you are because I say the same thing when people ask me how I'm doing. You can't bullshit a bull-shitter, Santana."

"I'm just…" I pause, swallowing around my inability to find the right words. I'm what, exactly? Not even I'm sure. "I'm glad you guys are here." I settle.

"We wouldn't be anywhere else," Noah insists, and I smile gently at him in gratitude.

"Come on Santana. Let's get you back inside," Quinn offers, tugging my arm gently. "We can talk more in there."

"No!" I protest sharply, pulling away from her. I understand that she is only trying to help, but the last thing I want is to be back inside of that hospital right now. "Please, Quinn. I can't be in there right now."

"Okay," Quinn nods gently, but her eyes are confused, and they occupy a burning question that I know I will inevitably have to face. What happened in there? "Why don't we just sit down over here?"

I watch her shrug towards an empty bench a couple of feet away. I nod willingly. It is far enough that it offers the illusion of escape without my being too far away.

I shuffle my feet, following Quinn and Noah. They sit me down, heavy as a stone against the wooden bench. I must really look a mess.

"Santana…" Quinn finally breathes, sitting down next to me. I feel her hand rest gently between my shoulder blades and lean into the touch out of instinct. "You can talk to us if you want to."

A crested whimper of emotion escapes the back of my throat at the invitation. That seems to be precisely the problem. I don't think that I want to talk about it. Or maybe I just don't know how.

"He… He…" I stammer blindly but fall just short.

"You don't have to talk right now if you're not ready. We can just sit here for a moment." Quinn is reassuring. I feel the hand she has against my back begin to move in soft, soothing circles. Maternal. That is the first word that comes to mind. Only three months pregnant, and Quinn is already doing a better job than my own mother, who has been doing this for eighteen years.

You're not being fair, Santana, I tell myself, but it only makes it worse.

I lean forward and sob inside of my hands, choking on the truth that is even harder to speak than it had been to swallow. The motion is loud and ugly. I can feel it attract the attention of passerby. I feel their gazes bearing into me, embarrassed for me and my lack of control. They look at me, and their eyes linger just long enough for them to pass judgment before darting away, afraid that my misfortune might be as contagious as anything else inside of this hospital.

For a moment, Quinn and Noah just allow me to cry. They form a protective shield around me and let me ride out this attack until it resolves in a fit of hiccups.

"They're going to take her away from us," I moan inside of my hands. The anger surges again, but this time, I am able to remind myself that it is not Quinn or Noah or even my mother who I am angry at. It's Andrew.

"You don't know that," Quinn shakes her head.

"You weren't there, Quinn!" I scream at the girl, who flinches at my tone. I notice it, but I do not back off. "You didn't see all those people. The police were there, and social workers, and CPS… They're all talking amongst each other considering whether or not we deserve to have Rachel. The thing is that I don't know that we do anymore."

"Stop blaming yourself," Quinn's voice breaks through my pathetic sniffling. It is not a request, but a demand.

"How can't I?" I ask, my face scrunched tight and ugly from the tears.

"You did the best that you could."

"And it wasn't good enough!" I snap. "Rachel is hurt, Quinn. She's in surgery right now. She could be dying, she could be dead for all I know, and everybody keeps talking to me in there like I'm some kind of little kid. I'm not. I know how this works."

Quinn shoots me a look. Do you? It seems to ask. Does anybody?"

"You're right," the blonde finally says after a moment of silence. "I wasn't there today. I don't know what happened or what you've been through, but I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere."

I pause briefly, stuck on Quinn's persistence.

"He hurt her, Quinn," I breathe. My voice has turned into a whisper so low that I can barely hear myself.

"I know," Quinn nods, but she doesn't understand, she can't. Not until I tell her.

"No," I shake my head to reiterate my statement. "He hurt her."

I watch Quinn's eyes narrow, concerned. "What do you mean?"

My eyes turn to the floor. I feel them fill with tears but blink them away because I need to be at my best right now.

"I knew that she wasn't telling me everything," I choke. "I knew she was keeping some secrets, but I never thought that it was as bad as it was. Maybe I just didn't want to think it. Rachel just put this brave face on all the time. She's a smart kid. She's always been so much smarter than me. It's so easy to forget that she's only fourteen. It was probably so easy for him to… to…"

I look up at Quinn, my eyes wide with fear.

"Santana…" The blonde catches me wandering and grabs me just before I can tumble off the cliff. I feel her hand against my back again. Her fingers are tightening, her nails digging deep into my skin. I don't even think she realizes that she is doing it. The sharp pinch is painful, but at least it keeps me in check.

"Her doctor told me and my mom that it's probably been pretty bad for a couple of weeks, maybe even as far back as to that very first day I saw anything. Who knows, it could have been before that. They found a lot of fractures. Old ones, new ones, it didn't matter. They were everywhere. Then today… He hit her until her ribs caved in and her lung collapsed. He whipped her, and he burned her with his fucking cigarettes for Christ's sake. What kind of sick person…? Who even thinks to…?"

I fall short of finishing a single thought because each one is more painful to consider than the last.

"Santana, I…" Quinn chokes, but she too falters. She recognizes that there is nothing more that she can say than I can right now.

"And do you know what he did after that?" I push, without acknowledging Quinn's attempt to interject. My voice is surprisingly calm. I recognize that it is not because I am coping with what happened, it is because I no longer have the energy to feel angry or upset. Instead, I am just tired. I am so incredibly tired that I don't even know how I've made it this far. "He raped her."

The reaction from both of my friends is instantaneous. I literally watch the color drain from Quinn's face. Before she can stop herself, a tight-lipped gasp sucks what little air that remains between us back out. Her face contorts, molding like wet clay as she struggles to find the proper expression to demonstrate the horror of what she just heard.

In front of me, I watch Noah's bearing disintegrate for one stunning moment. He shifts uncomfortably and runs his fingers through his long mohawk, which is in desperate need of a trim. He is breathing very purposefully, trying not to lose control. I watch his arm flex and his fingers curl into a fist like he is expecting Andrew to come walking around the corner as we speak.

Noah Puckerman is perhaps one of the most complex individuals that I have ever met. He is strikingly loyal and very protective towards the lucky few who have managed to break through that thick outer layer. It is an excellent quality for a person, but Noah has a reputation to uphold. Throughout his years rising to the top of the Lima public school system, Noah has learned to hide his emotional intuitiveness. Instead, he usually expresses it in the form of aggression, which lead to his notorious alter-ego, Puck.

Still, this anger is different. It is not that fake, poster-boy persona I am used to seeing at school. This is not the same boy who had once been caught singlehandedly trying to fit the entire marching band into one dumpster. This anger is genuine. It is mature and prolific, and I can tell by the look in his eyes that it is physically changing him as we speak.

Noah Puckerman is angry, but it comes with a strange relief to know that there is somebody else who feels as strongly about what happened to my sister as I do.

"Okay…" Quinn manages to breathe first, forcing herself to remain the voice of reason. "We're going to make this okay again, Santana. We will fix this."

I force myself to nod as I sink back against the bench. I thrust my head between my knees and bring my hands up along the curvature of my nose, pressing them together almost as though in a gesture of prayer although I had given up on praying years ago.

When I finally find the strength to look up, I catch a glimpse into the crowd in front of me. My eyes flicker through them briefly, but in that moment, I manage to find a person who looks incredibly familiar.

My face drops with surprise. Stiff with shock, my jaw comes unhinged and dangles. I push myself to my feet, forcing a double take, but I can't find her again. An enormous group had just fallen through the front doors, blocking my view.

Then, the crowd dissipates, and that familiar silhouette is back. This time, there is absolutely no denying who I had just seen standing there.

Brittany.