The next day…

'Tis a poor humble dwelling; yet within,
The sweets of joy domestic, oft have made
The long hour not unchearly, while the Moor
Was covered with deep snow, and the bleak blast
Swept with impetuous wing the mountain's brow!
On ev'ry tree of the near shelt'ring wood
The minstrelsy of Nature, shrill and wild,
Welcomes the stranger guest, and carolling
Love-songs, spontaneous, greets him merrily.

~ The Widow's Home (M. Darby Robinson)

When Principal Figgins had come into work he had expected an easy and light workload. What he did not see coming was the multitude of message on his phone from the previous night and earlier in the morning informing him and keeping him apprised of Quinn Fabray's situation including the manner of her attack. He texted Schue to say that he could take a few days leave but he had to come in for a meeting to discuss what had befallen the girl this morning.

Even before he set foot in his office, Figgins observed that Sue and Emma had beaten him to the chase. He cursed that gossip spread so quickly in this little town. He would have liked to gather his thoughts before going head to head with Schue and the other faculty members but evidently he was not going to win anything today.

"Sue, Emma," he greeted, "good morning."

"No, it's not. Have you heard about Quinn Fabray yet? What's the story? What I get on WOHN is that William took her to the ER last night and she looked like a war victim!" Sue Sylvester bellowed as she stormed round his small office.

"Can we just wait until Schue gets here? I don't know the entire story and it appears that only he and Miss Fabray do, so instead of shouting at me, Sue, just sit down and have some coffee and wait for it."

Emma nodded, choosing to keep her own counsel until it was needed and she knew what to make of the developments. She couldn't sit down on Figgins' furniture though. She hadn't brought her disinfecting kit and she turned her nose up at the idea of germs coming into contact with her person through the inadequately cleaned fabric of the principal's couch.

When Will Schuester fell through the door without knocking, dressed only in sweatpants and a hoodie with flip flops on his feet, then shoved Sue off the couch and lay down flat atop it, the three of them were speechless. The man looked haunted and as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Will?" Figgins asked timidly, not wanting the Spanish teacher to fall asleep in front him, which looked like a definite possibility. God, the man looked done in.

Even Coach Sylvester who very rarely had a sympathetic sinew in her entire body felt her heart twinge in sympathy for her nemesis. She knew that William Schuester cared deeply for his students and whilst she thought that his touchy feely approach was never what was called for, she had to admit that he really came through when a student required his help.

"How's Quinn?" Emma finally asked, wanting to break the intolerable silence that had washed over the room and its occupants.

Will looked up at his friend with bleary red eyes that had been washed and rewashed over the past few hours with floods of salt water and muttered, "It's bad. She's very bad, though she and the baby are fine on the outside, she's still in a bad way. The whole thing is just…bad."

Usually the man was so eloquent and upbeat but as well as Quinn apparently being bad, no one had any doubt that Will Schuester was in a bad way also.

"Schue, Diane has fielded a lot of phone calls from you, from the school board, from the hospital, from social services since she got in this morning, but I don't really have the full picture. You need to give me the full picture so we can decided what to do about all this."

Suddenly, Will sat bolt upright and yelled with no qualms, "So we can decide?! So we can decide?! You three think that we in this small and insignificant little room are going to decide anything now relating to Quinn?! Don't be so naïve! She has just been through hell and thankfully she's come out the other side, but that doesn't mean she won't have the memories of it for the rest of her life. I know I will and I'm just the one who found her drenched in a pool of her own blood! What has been decided by her because she is the only one she trusts at the moment except for me and that is still something I'm trying with all my might to wrap my head around. So – with all due respect – butt the hell out!"

Emma rose and went to sit beside her closest friend, unable to cope with being across the room from him while he was a wreck and taking his hand, she gently said, "Will, just tell us, please. It'll be better if you talk about it and I'm sorry but we do need to know the facts. Nobody is talking about taking any more away from Quinn and we get that you're just trying to protect her, but we're not the bad guys here, Will. We're just trying to help her – and you – as best as we know how, so please just let us. Okay?"

He nodded before beginning his tale, "She was in the glee room – not that we're ever going to be able to call it that again – and someone just came in and beat the crap out of her and, and…"

He hadn't even got to the real beginning of the story when he began to stumble and stutter over the words.

"Raped her?" Emma asked quietly.

All he could do was slightly bob his head in assent but once that detail had sunk in, he continued, "She said he tried to take her stuff but her cell must have fallen out of his pocket in the…process and she called me. I hightailed it over here and I took her to the ER. While we were there and she was being admitted and examined, it was clear that she needs a better support system. No offence to Mercedes and her mom, but they don't look after her properly. Mercedes goes off with Kurt and her mom is content to provide Quinn with a family home without being her family. Quinn is either dealing with all the racket of a family she doesn't fit into, which is why she took refuge in the choir room, or by herself. Terri's gone and I have an entire place to myself. She knows me, she trusts me and she readily agreed to stay with me and we've filled out all the necessary paperwork and social services are happy with the arrangement, so I don't really get why I'm dredging all this crap up again!"

"Will, you cannot be serious about inviting Quinn to live with you! It's just not the right thing to do. Maybe she can come stay with me instead."

That was a development that no one expected, least of all Will. Usually, he could depend on Emma Pillsbury to be on Team Schue when it came to squaring off with Figgins and Coach Sylvester but if she was against him especially in this fight, he didn't stand a chance.

"Elmo, if Quinn stays with you she'll slit her goddamn wrists," Sue declared, "and I hate to say this – all of you know that – but you and Figgins here are either deranged or just plain stupid if you think that Quinn belongs anywhere but at William's here."

"Huh?" Schuester grunted, truly taken aback by this sudden and unexpected olive branch from the deplorable Cheerios coach.

"Look, I don't like you, but I'm not as dim as these two nut jobs. If Quinn has chosen to stay at Will's under his guardianship then we should let her. She's just had all her power and self-respect stripped from her, so we should support her in her decisions and it's not like she'll be in danger at Schuester's. God knows the place is probably so quirky, she'll want to recover faster just to get away from the creep."

She winked at Will, confirming that she was just teasing him and trying to lighten the mood with her last dig, but he could forgive her that just for taking up arms with him. For what Sue Sylvester wanted to happen generally did, with the exception of the glee club's demise.

"She may not be a Cheerio anymore," Sue carried on, determined to get her point home and to coerce Emma and Figgins into backing down, "but she was the captain of the squad and as such, she's still one of my girls. Even though she's a huge disappointment where cheerleading is concerned as her new centre of gravity is shared with that of a Jersey cow, she's a great kid."

"But…" Emma attempted to get a word in.

"Enough, Emma," Will retorted sharply with unfamiliar venom in his eyes, "just let it be, please."

He reached for the principal's microphone and pressed the button that connected it directly to the PA system that broadcasted over the entire school.

"This is Mr. Schuester," he spoke clearly, "could all members of the glee club go immediately to the choir room. This is not a request. All members of staff must acquiesce."

Without speaking another word to the other three adults in the office, Will flew out of the principal's office and headed off to the choir room, which he hoped had been cleaned…thoroughly! When he reached his destination he was relieved to see the blood and strewn clothing had been eradicated. That would spare the kids some, thankfully.

He would have normally dragged the piano stool out and sat facing the pews to speak to the entire club, but after Quinn had told him how she had been propped up against it and taken, he loathed that bit of furniture. He settled for the drum stool instead and distracted himself with twirling on its revolving head while he awaited his kids' arrival.

It took a few minutes but eventually every one of his kids (with the obvious exception) was sat before him, nervously waiting for him to expand on why they had been pulled out of their classes and ordered to the choir room.

"What's up, Mr. Schue?" Finn asked, unnerved by the glee club leader's dour expression.

"Before I tell you all why you're all here, I just need to say that everything is fine and sorted now." He stated calmly.

"You're scaring us. Just tell us what it is."

He took a deep breath as he prepared himself for the harrowing tale he was about to impart, "It's about Quinn. She was attacked last night…here. Before you start haranguing me or rushing all over Lima, she's stable and okay now. However, it was violent and…sexual. She is still extremely traumatised by it all and that is unlikely to change in the near future. In the light of things, I am going to be taking a couple of days off and I won't be here to run practice for a week or so and furthermore, Quinn is no longer going to be staying with Mercedes. She is coming to live with me."

"What?!" Puck exploded, his rage and fear growing with every word Mr. Schue had spoken but erupting at his announcement that the girl carrying his child would be going to stay with their teacher.

"She has decided that she wants to live at my place. That's all I needed to hear, really. It's all squared away with the school and with social services and her parents remain out of contact."

Puck stood up and walked right down to where the teacher sat, "She should be staying with me! It was my child and its mother who got attacked after all!"

Will groaned, in that moment internally decrying adolescent hormones, "Puck, she has just had every ounce of self-respect and power torn away from her. She called me to take her to the hospital after it happened, she told me she doesn't trust anyone else – and I'm not just saying that to blow my own trumpet – so as far as I'm concerned, Quinn herself needs to be the one who determines what she does next. Or are you going to take all that she has left from her?"

Puck felt such guilt at Mr. Schue's words that he just shook his head in defeat and retreated to his spot at the back of the benches. It was true what he said about the father-to-be. Despite the fact that he tried to make it work with Quinn as both a boyfriend and sire of her unborn child, he had failed like the Lima-loser he tried not to be.

"Now, what I propose is that you all come over to mine on Saturday night. I'll order some pizza or something. I don't want her to think she's going through this alone. She still thinks deep down that she's not a part of the glee club and it's up to all of us to make her realise that she is the heart of the thing."

Finn nodded in agreement, "You're right, Mr. Schue. We'll all be there."

"I do have to ask her first, so when I see her later I'll ask her about it and if she's up to it, I'll email round the details. Sound good?"

Mercedes, who had looked like she was about to pass out (probably from a mixture of shame and concern that had been building up while Will spoke), finally spoke up, "Can we go and see her at the hospital?"

Mr. Schuester had been afraid someone would ask that question, "I don't think so, Mercedes and everyone. She's still very shaky and it's too soon for her to see people particularly in a foreign environment. So, I ask for her sake, that you just wait to see her until Saturday night, when she's in less sterile surroundings."

Everyone seemed to understand his point of view and find his terms acceptable so when he dismissed them all with notes for their teachers, there were thankfully no irate and belligerent students wanting to have it out with him. He did eye Puck warily, for if any of his glee kids might have wanted to see Quinn before the time was right, it would have been the father of her baby, but as the teenager walked out of the room he just looked blank and spoke not a word.

"That was well done." Came Emma's lyrical voice from nowhere.

Will spun around on his heels and observed the guidance counsellor leaning against the piano behind him and wondered how long she had been standing there listening to him update Quinn's friends.

"Emma, just answer me this," he asked in a pained voice, "why aren't you on my side in this?"

"Oh, Will, I am on your side. That's why I don't think it's a good idea for Quinn to live with you. She's just so close to all that baby drama with Terri and she's in such a vulnerable state, as are you, I might add. I just think the whole thing will lead to you both getting more hurt than you should be in your futures."

He scoffed at her, "That's the biggest amount of crap I've ever heard. If you're implying that I would seek any kind of retribution against Quinn were she in the state she's in or not, then you never knew me at all and I never knew you! As far as you caring for my future goes, why don't you just let me worry for mine and Quinn's futures?"

She looked as hurt by the unpleasant venom in his voice as he spat his insults at her but she knew he was just strung out and would apologise for it when he had calmed down and she would instantly forgive him, but for right now, all she could do was vehemently reply, "Very well, Will. I'll do just that but please just be careful…both of you."