A/N: Glad you guys have been enjoying it, and thanks for all the reviews, favourites, alerts etc. And on with the story!
Three hundred and seventy seven
Rachel goes back into school two days after being discharged. Chemo starts in two weeks and she's sick of sitting at home alone pouring over textbooks. She wants to be around people who love her. And everyone loves the underdog. Rachel puts on a brave, determinedly smiling face. A face which nobody would know is sick; not because she feels the need for a positive outlook, but because she wants everyone to remember her smile despite hard circumstance. She wants to be remembered as a heroine and inspiration.
"Hi, Rachel, how are you doing?" Quinn leans against the lockers while Rachel sifts through her collection of books in hers.
Although Rachel's outlook is good, she's living in a world where she believes she is going to die.
"Great, thanks," Rachel's voice was bright, she grinned at Quinn with pearl-white teeth.
Quinn looked disconcerted by her bright outlook. "Right. Okay then. Um. Are you coming to Glee?" Her voice is a little too high pitched.
"Yeah, of course," said Rachel, nonchalantly. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"I'm... well, I thought you might go home early if you didn't feel so good."
"Why would I do that?"
"It might be a good idea," suggested Quinn. "I mean, you don't want to over-exert yourself too far." She reaches out and touches Rachel on the shoulder in a gesture of comfort.
Rachel snaps. She isn't sure why, but something about Quinn breaks her facade and she throws ther books back in her locker and turns to face her, almost yelling; "Honestly, Quinn, what is this about? Is it about Finn again? Popularity? Because all I know is that you've never cared about me and the moment I'm-" she slams the locker shut, not caring that the whole hallway is staring at her. "-sick, you act like we're best friends. And I'm sick of your double standards, Quinn Fabray. I'm sick of you being my friend when it's convenient for you and then turning your knives on me when I'm in the way of something you want!" Rachel has to stop to take a breather. It's her years of practice for speeches and acting that she was able to reel all that out without a stutter, but it takes her a moment to piece out her next few words. She's more quiet now, reserved, while Quinn looks stunned. "And for the record," her voice now is almost more frightening to Quinn than when she was screaming in her face; "I'm not after Finn."
"I-I know that. It's not about that."
"Then what?" says Rachel, exasperated., throwing her hands up in the air."Do you need to be nice to me now to remind everyone how kind Miss Quinn Fabray is? Because it's not going to work, Quinn! Your platitudes to me won't earn you anything!" She stands there for a moment, unsure, and then turns and flounces away. She doesn't notice that she's left her notebook on the floor.
Quinn stands there in shock for a moment too long. The world begins to move around her again, the drama continues in hushed whispers, furtive and hungry for gossip. Like crows, Quinn finds herself thinking. Each and every one of them hungry for scraps. She dives to the floor like a bottom-feeder in some eco-system too grand to pick up Rachel's notebook, scrambling it up and shoving it under her coat. She's ashamed that she's been reduced to a scavenger when she's always at the top. Soon enough, she might be shark-bait.
Quinn doesn't mean to read it. She really doesn't. She means to slip it straight back to Rachel in Glee Club as a gesture of peace to remedy the situation, but Rachel never shows. And Quinn is left with the weight of the notebook in her bag and when she gets home, she finds that she's pulling it out the bag.
Her hands are furtive as she opens the pages. They're crisp and new, everything neat. She shakes as she looks at the words.
Rachel's handwriting is slender and beautiful. Quinn finds herself tracing it with her little finger, feeling the imprint of it on the page.
The notebook isn't so much a diary as a book of thoughts. There's no contrived, this-is-what-I-did-today feel to it. It's thoughts and feelings and words and drawings and Rachel, summed up into the folds of these pages. Although there's nothing particularly private in there thus far, Quinn feels far too much like an intruder. These words aren't hers to own. She closes the book, feeling ashamed of herself, but one fragment catches her eye as she does.
Do you ever imagine your own funeral? It seems vain, but sometimes I do. Everybody wants to be remembered for being someone great.
Quinn knows the feeling all to well. She doesn't move for a long time, absorbed in the thought that she wasn't alone in this hunger to be special.
Back at her home, Rachel Berry fishes through her bag for a full fifteen minutes before realising she must have lost the notebook. She curses herself, trying to find a way to backtrack through her mind, but she can't remember any opportunity she had to lose it. She went home after third period to avoid Glee.
Oh. Her mind retraces the fight in the hallway. She could have easily left it there. She tries to convince herself it's still in her locker, but she remembers taking it out and holding it in her hand.
Please let it be still in the hallway or in a bin somewhere, she thinks. Please let Quinn not even know it exists.
She prays it until she falls asleep, staring at the stars through her open window with the cool air on her face.