AN: Another day another chapter


Charlie sighed as she was forced into a chair by one of the police officers. She didn't struggle, she didn't say anything. Every single time that she said something she was rewarded with getting slammed against the ground or a wall. She had called Frannie last night and left a message when she hadn't picked up before she had been dragged back to the holding cells. She was tired, hungry, and trying not to think about how Santana was never going to let her near Bela again. She had promised to call Bela when she got home, and that hadn't happened. Santana was also going to be furious about that—things were going well.

Charlie closed her eyes. No one was going to believe her, this was nothing new. It didn't matter if she had never had a prescription drug problem. She had just been addicted to cocaine. But she doubted anyone was going to check into that. She was a drug addict who had a drug problem, it was probably all the same to them. She didn't care that if her family didn't believe her, she was used to them not believing her—but she didn't want to disappoint Bela, and that's where this was going. It had been nice while it lasted, being some knight in shining armor for once. She pulled on the cuffs around her wrists, and winced, her wrists were bruised. They hadn't been gentle in cuffing her, her shoulder and collarbone hurt like a bitch.

The door to the interrogation room opens and Charlie looks up to see Dani's smug face looking at her. "It's my job to get scum like you off the streets. You had enough pills on you that we are working up to charging you with possession with intent to distribute." Dani smirked at Charlie. "The prosecutor is going to come down hard on you. We looked into your financials, large sums of money going into your account and leaving it. We have you."

Charlie stared at Dani, all of this suddenly made sense to her now. It had been Dani that had ruined her life. What was she going to do, say that Dani had set her up? It was common knowledge that she did have a drug problem. She didn't want to go to prison, she didn't want Bela to visit her in prison. "Lawyer." Charlie said hoping that Frannie would come bail her out.

"You know what your court appointed lawyer is going to say? Take the deal before it goes to trial," Dani said pushing a paper in front of her. "Just admit it, the judge will probably take it easy on you. Who knows you might get to see your daughter before she graduates—well if Santana lets you."

The door to the interrogation room opened and Frannie walked in and glanced at the notepad in front of Charlie who looked positively relieved to see her. "Charlie, I know you're an idiot, but please tell me that you didn't say anything."

"I asked for a lawyer? And I asked why I was stopped—but they didn't tell me anything. They searched my car, but they didn't Mirandize me till I got to the station." Charlie explained quickly looking at Frannie. "Frannie I didn't—"

"Shut-up. I had to take public transportation to get here. I don't want to hear it." Frannie snaps at her sister causing her to shut her mouth. Frannie turned to Dani and narrowed her eyes. "You heard her she asked for counsel, so you're going to leave the room, and I'm going to talk with my client, and I'm going to pretend that you didn't try and force a confession out of her even though she asked for a lawyer." Frannie eyed her youngest sister noticing the state she was in. "Actually scratch that, I'm going to add that to the lawsuit that I'm already envisioning in my head for the excessive use of force. Now get your ass out of here." Frannie said dismissively.

Dani stared at Frannie for a moment before getting up and shooting Charlie a hateful look. "We found the drugs in her car." Dani snapped at Frannie who didn't seem to back down. She sneered before storming out of the room.

Frannie waits for a moment before turning to look at Charlie, who was staring at the table. "You can speak now. How did this happen?"

Charlie opened her mouth and closed it, "The drugs aren't mine. I was just driving home and I got stopped. I got my license and registration out and then the next thing I know I'm being dragged out of the car. He tells me to stop resisting, and I do but he keeps repeating it. Next thing I know I'm being hauled into the car and then there are a bunch of police officers and then they're waving a bag of pills. I'm being set up Frannie. Dani used to date Santana and they broke up. I didn't do it."

"Are you sure?" Frannie asked crossing her arms.

Charlie sighs. "Look I don't know what I have to do to make you believe me," Charlie admits.

Frannie shrugged, it didn't really matter if they were Charlie's or not. She just wanted the truth. "I need you to be straight with me. It's not yours?"

"No, it's not." Charlie admits. "I never had a pill problem Frannie. I had a coke problem."

Frannie paused for a moment, Charlie had a point. She knew it was cocaine and it's not like Charlie actually needed the money. She was rich, even if she insisted on living like the normal folks. She still had her trust fund even if it was a pain to get money from it. She wouldn't need to sell drugs. "I believe you."

Charlie blinked and looked at Frannie, "You do?"

"I do, now tell me more about this Dani person? You said she was dating Santana?"

"Yeah she was, they broke up though. She's showed up a few times and I know she doesn't want me around. But Santana was allowing me to spend time with Bela. We worked on her project together—and I was supposed to call last night but I didn't want to call her from jail. Santana's not going to let me see her after this Frannie, I just—"

"One thing at a time." Frannie said holding up her hands, "Look, I'm going to make sure that you get out of this and then I'm going to roast this department alive, and probably have all their badges by this afternoon." Frannie said. If only because they had made her take public transportation. Next time she was sending one of her associates. "Was she there last night? Think back."

"No. She wasn't." Charlie says immediately. "I didn't recognize anyone there. I didn't recognize the cop, and I was polite. I mean he shined a light in my eyes and I just covered my eyes and the next thing I know he's trying to pull me out of my window. He didn't even tell me why I was stopped. I just thought I had a busted taillight or I forgot to change my tags."

"I see, well let's rip this Dani person a new one shall we?" Frannie said simply. Someone was going to have to pay for this trip and it might as well be the police department.


To say that Santana was furious would be putting it mildly. She was positively incensed. How difficult was it to simply call your daughter when you got home? She had let Bela stay up just so she could get the call, only to find her asleep this morning. Charlie couldn't just not show up, this was not something that she had the right to do. She had called Charlie at least five times this morning to let her know how irritated she was at her but it had gone straight to voicemail. It was simply unacceptable, and she wasn't even sure if Charlie was going to come tonight like she had promised. Maybe she should just get another contractor and have them take care of the house.

She felt like an idiot, for putting her trust in Charlie. This was how it started, and the worst part was that Bela adored her. She had thought that Charlie cared enough about Bela that this wouldn't be a problem, but she had made those vows before. She had been in Bela's shoes before, trusting every word that came from Charlie's mouth. Bela was going to stop being so damn optimistic, she was going to lose her imagination and become cold and cynical. She was ten. She was too young to be a cynic. Fucking Fabrays. The worse part about it was that yesterday had felt nice, it was about the only decent thing about her day next to the nausea and the dizziness and the eternal exhaustion. That was hurt the most, that was why it stung so badly to see her doing this again. Bela had texted her quite a bit during the break to ask if she had heard from Charlie.

She was about to try Charlie again when her cellphone rang. She picked it up hoping that it was Charlie. Her ex-girlfriend had better have the best fucking excuse in the world. "Charlie?"

"No, it's Quinn," Quinn corrected leaning against the wall of her apartment. She had gotten the call from Frannie early this morning and it was the last time that she had heard from Frannie. Rachel had insisted that someone needed to tell Santana, in case she was worried and she had promised her that she would. But she hadn't heard from Frannie for most of the day and she was starting to get worried herself.

Santana frowned at her tone, it didn't sound good. "What happened? Where is she?" If Charlie had been in some sort of accident, then she forgave her. She'd have to tell Bela, and that wouldn't be good.

"Look, I want to be straight with you. We were right not to trust her, she got arrested for possession with the intent to sell. I know it's going to be difficult to talk to Bela about it, but Frannie's cleaning up her mess right now. I just called to let you know that she was caught with some pills."

Santana frowned at this, Charlie caught with pills? "What type of pills? And where the hell was she arrested?" Santana demanded, feeling a headache coming on. She could already see where this was going and if it was she thought it was. She was going to kill Dani, and she'd have to apologize to Charlie for dragging her into this mess. She didn't deserve this.

"Look I don't know the details yet. Frannie would have more news for me later. But I think it was ecstasy. It was possession with intent to distribute. All I know is she's in Philadelphia." Quinn sighed. She had made it clear to Rachel that Charlie wasn't allowed to spend time with Beth anymore. Even though Rachel had insisted that they hear Charlie's side first. As far as she knew her mother was already heading down and dragging their father along with her. This whole thing was going to get ugly fast.

"Since when did Charlie start enjoying EDM concerts?" Santana asked sarcastically. Even ten years ago Charlie had never been a big fan of ecstasy. She was going to murder Dani Harper. Setting Charlie up, this was going to spiral quickly out of control and she simply didn't have the energy to take Bela to visit Charlie in prison, especially since she didn't do anything.

"Look Santana, I know you're upset with her. Hell I'm pissed at her for you—but you can't murder her. I'll take care of it, so you don't have to worry—Bela's safety comes first." Quinn said sighing. She had been sort of happy that Charlie was getting better and was making strides. Even if she didn't know,

Santana rolled her eyes. "Why the hell would I murder Charlie? She didn't do anything, Charlie was a cocaine addict and as far as I know she never sold drugs, she just took them. She especially didn't something as stupid and juvenile as ecstasy. Let alone prescription drugs." Quinn didn't respond and Santana paused for a moment. "Wait—you believed that Charlie was out selling drugs? I thought you said you knew Charlie better than anyone."

"I do—it's just she's been weird as hell lately! And she won't tell me what's up. She passes a drug test so she can get money from her trust fund and she won't tell me what she's spending the money on. Then I find out she's gone to Frannie behind my back and is talking to her. I don't know what to believe anymore. I talked to my dad who said she was in a rush the other day—I thought she was in trouble because she had some gambling debts or something," Quinn replied defensively.

"Look, it's so not my job to tell you about Charlie's business. But just so we're clear, you're a bitch and I have to go pick up my daughter and then go to the police station and go and rip into my ex-girlfriend that clearly framed your sister." Santana said shaking her head and ending the call. Damn Fabrays always had to make her life difficult. She wasn't going to touch that family mess with a ten foot pole, but she did need to go apologize to Charlie. Even if she hadn't done anything wrong, she still felt slightly responsible for Dani's actions.


"I knew Dani was a villain mom! I told you." Bela said following her mother a pleased smile on her face. "Now we have to save Charlie! This is perfect." Bela said in an excited tone. Stories where the knight saved the princess were old, the princess should save the knight and the knight should save the princess. They should save each other. Besides her mom was too much of a badass to ever just be the damsel in distress but Charlie had needed an in and it was the easiest way.

"We've talked about this Bela. People aren't just good and evil. Dani did something terrible and mean to Charlie—that doesn't mean that she's an evil person." Santana said even if she really didn't believe it. Fucking with someone's life and their livelihood because you were a jealous bitch was absolutely evil. "That being said, Dani needs to learn that she can't fuck with our family right?"

Bela slowly grinned and reached for her mother's hand, "Yeah, she can't fuck with our family," Bela said pleased that her mother saw that Charlie was part of their family. Perhaps Praying Mantis wasn't the right operation name.

Santana eyed her daughter and shrugged, she had been a foul mouthed child and even though her mother had attempted once to wash her mouth, she didn't really care if Bela swore. It wasn't as if she did it often. Santana stopped at the front desk. "Where are you holding Charlie Fabray?"

"Santana! Oh thank god you're here, look we're going to need to hire your firm to do a major cleanup of our image. There's this lawyer in there that's ripping us to shred and making extensive notes and recordings which she plans to release to the press," Captain William Schuester said relaxing. Maybe his assistant had gotten to Santana. The police chief was now on his ass to get to the bottom of this because the mayor had been on her ass. This whole thing was a mess.

"Let me guess Frannie Fabray?" Will nodded his head and Santana closed her eyes. "Well, I guess one of the Fabrays can do their job properly. Look William—I'd say I would love to help you but that'd be a lie. Charlie Fabray is Bela's mother and I told Dani not to engage. You want to blame someone, blame Dani for this. She did this, so the easiest thing to do right now, is number one give into Frannie's demands because you don't want this going before a judge. Frannie will eviscerate this department's budget for the next five years and you'll be bounced back to doing traffic stops for the rest of your life if any judge hears this case. Also when you're writing the settlement check because you want to keep Frannie quiet, I suggest you add a few more zeros at the end of it." Santana said bluntly, "Now can you point me in the direction of where you're holding Charlie?" She smiled at Will and followed him as he led her to the interrogation room.

"I thought cops were there to protect and serve," Bela said speaking up. "Dani told me that they were the good guys," Bela said accusingly to Will who looked at her. "You're not supposed to do this."

Will frowned a bit and scratched his head and glanced at Santana who didn't look like she was in a rush to correct her daughter. "Look—little girl, you just don't understand—"

Santana ignored him, she couldn't be bothered to correct his idiocy today as they finally came upon the interrogation room, which opened as they approached and Dani stumbled out looking rather—haunted. Santana straightened herself up and marched towards her, "What the fuck did you do Dani Harper?" She demanded.

Dani grimaced and looked at her and then Bela who had a gigantic grin on her face. "Look Santana—maybe we shouldn't do this here—you know in front of your daughter," Dani said quickly holding her hands out, to try and placate Santana.

Santana blinked, "Are you fucking serious? I protected my daughter, she didn't know about Charlie's drug problem until you brought it up in front of her. You're the asshole, who tried to be the moral authority in my life. I don't want to hear your excuses, I told you to leave her alone."

"I wasn't there! They found pills in her car Santana—I'm just trying to protect you and Bela!"

"You planted the pills in her car, you called your little cop buddies told them that what? How exactly did you think this was going to go? I was going to what? Fall madly in love with you? Get back together with you? Bela doesn't like you, you don't even really like her. Why in the world would I think that forcing this relationship to work would be a good idea? And even if that wasn't the case, you think this doesn't smell like shit? You come to my house and try and spew some bullshit about how you want to be friends, while Charlie's helping me with my house and then you find pills in her truck."

"I—" Dani began going a deep red.

"Dani—for the love of god, please don't say a word until your union rep shows up," Will said immediately coming to her aid. Will turned to Santana, "Look—if we apologize do you think that the reaming that we did won't be bad?" Will asked not noticing that the door had been opened and Frannie had been watching the events and the verbal smack down that Santana had put on Dani.

"Of course not. I had to come down to Philadelphia." Frannie said causing everyone to look at her and tilted her head back into the room and eyes Charlie who is still sitting there. "That was hot by the way. You do have better taste than I thought."

Bela moved quickly before Santana could stop her into the interrogation room brushing by Frannie who immediately recoiled at being touched by a child. "Charlie! I got an A—did they beat you up?"

Charlie blinked and stood up only for her to remember that she was still cuffed to the table. She ignored it and smiled at Bela. "I'm sorry I didn't call last night—don't worry about me. But you got an A that's really cool!" Charlie said pulling on the cuffs again.

Bela wasn't having any of it, as she turned around and stormed out furious, ignoring Frannie who watched slightly amused as she looked at Will and Dani. "Why'd you beat up my Charlie," she snapped at Dani.

Santana blinked and turned to Dani again, "You know, you keep going on about how I needed to protect Bela from Charlie, but from where I stand Dani—the only criminal here is you." Santana said simply, wondering what she had ever seen in Dani. "Now, I have to go apologize to the mother of my child for not handling my business properly."

"Mother of your child?" Russell asked his mouth dropping.

Frannie flicked her eyes to her parents and groaned as her parents stood there with a dumbfounded look on their face. She hadn't wanted to be in the epicenter of this cluster fuck of a situation. She turned to Will. "What are you waiting for, she's not a criminal, and yet she's still chained like an animal."

William immediately moved into the interrogation room and sighed, wondering why he was taking care of it. He was the captain of the division, perhaps not for much longer, but he had people who should be doing this. "You're free to go," Will said and Charlie pushed past him and left the room and immediately went to stand by Santana.

"Santana—I'm sorry. I didn't—I swear I'm not on pills or selling them." Charlie says immediately. She needed Santana to believe her, it was all she could think of. "Please don't stop letting me see Bela."

Santana glances at Russell and Judy for a moment and her daughter and reaches for her pulling her close. This situation was not going as planned. Of course they would show up now of course they would find out today. "You didn't do anything wrong. I know that, so you don't have to worry. I'm not going to stop you from seeing her or talking to her." Santana promised. "Your parents on the other hand," Santana said dropping her voice so only Charlie could hear her.

Charlie turned and looked at her parents surprised that they were even there, though she shouldn't be surprised. She caught her dad's eye, there was still disbelief written on his features. She wasn't sure if it was because he had found out that he had another grandchild or—because she was telling the truth. She didn't really care though. "I don't know where they took my truck and they smashed some of my stuff. I'm probably not going to get that back in working order am I?"

"Probably not," Santana agrees realizing what Charlie was doing, "Do you need a ride to get it?" Santana flicks her eyes.

"I yeah—I also need my wallet and stuff, and my phone. I didn't want to call while in jail—otherwise I would have called the moment I got home."

"It's okay Charlie, I'm not upset," Bela says and tugs on her arm. "Why are those people staring at me?"

Russell finally found his words, "I'm—" he begins wondering how Charlie had managed to hide this from him.

"The person who never believed me," Charlie says interrupting him and immediately slaps a smile on her face. "How about I buy you some ice cream, for getting an A. I told you that we could get one. If that's okay with your mom."

Santana flicked her eyes to Charlie's parents for a moment and then shrugged, "Sure let's get your stuff and grab your truck and you can spend some time with Charlie."

Charlie smiles and is about to say something when she remembers that Frannie's still around. "Thank you Frannie."

"So we're clear, I'm still suing on your behalf. I need to make up this day, expect a settlement check soon. I'll be taking a third of it though." Frannie said dismissively. Maybe she could get a ride back into the city with her parents. She glanced at them, her father looked like he was going to have a coronary. Oh well.


AN: see you tomorrow reviews are nice