Please remember, since you all greedy little people got two chapters last week, doesn't mean it's going to happen again. I have to make sure I stay at least a certain number of chapters ahead.

Again, beta'd by me, myself, and I...BUT...starting next chapter I believe I have a beta, we still have to finish like hammering out all the details. So...yea all mistakes are my own.

Decided to bring in another Glee character for a small part in the story. I was torn between two people to bring in. Hope you all don't mind my choice. You get to find out how Quinn was found.

The First 24
Chapter 7

December 27 – 2:18 AM

Quinn laid on her hospital bed. Honestly it was the furthest thing from comfortable. Though, anything was better than that snow covered road, or the old dingy mattress Jim had her sleeping on. Sleeping… that's what she should be doing now. It's what everybody else was doing. She turned to see Brittany's head on Santana's shoulder. They were both out like a light in the pair of chairs that were along the window. Beside her sat her wife. Rachel was also asleep. Though only recently. She stayed awake with Quinn just in case she needed anything.

With a shaky, bandaged hand she reached out to touch her wife's cheek. The three of them didn't even hesitate in driving through the night, just for her. The moment she felt the skin to skin contact she retracted her hand almost as if it burned her. She wanted so desperately to find comfort in their arms. Any of the three of them in fact. But comfort never came. Even the tiniest of touches brought memories flooding into her mind.

She remembered every time she'd feel his rough fingers on her cheek… her neck… her chest. Quinn could still feel his touch on every part of her body. She recalled the sickening sensation of his rancid mouth kissing and biting various parts of her skin. If only there was some way to bleach the thoughts from her mind. It wasn't that simple though.

"It'll get better with time Quinn."

They all kept telling her. Over and over. All day long. It was a broken record in her mind that instead of breaking, she allowed to play. No matter how meaningless the words felt to her, they still gave her a small sense of comfort. And right now she needed everything she could get.

Maybe once they all got back home. Maybe after her and Rachel finished the paperwork and subsequent move to their new home in Los Angeles. Maybe then it would get better. Just maybe.

Quinn was never one to get her hopes up for anything. Ever since she was a child with hopes and dreams, every single time she'd gotten excited for something, her parents or sister would let her down. She remembered once when she was about 6 or 7, her dad told her he'd take her to Chuck-E-Cheese for her birthday. Of course she got excited. What child wouldn't? But, just like clockwork, when her Saturday birthday rolled around, Russell had to work. It soon became routine where she'd be promised something even as simple as ice cream after dinner, and let down. So hearing Rachel, Brittany, and Santana all telling her earlier that it would get better, she didn't believe it. She wanted to, but she felt she couldn't.

Since the moment they started dating, Rachel had been trying to break that negative habit of Quinn's. It really wasn't working. Truth be told, when you've lost your most basic of human instincts – the will to survive – nothing else mattered. Why try to find the good in things when you've felt like dying? Quinn hadn't told Rachel or the others yet about how she wanted to die. She wanted him to hit her one too many times. She wanted to never wake up. And once she escaped, she wanted the falling snow and freezing temperatures to take her. For once in her life… why couldn't she get what she wanted?

She tried to relax enough for sleep. Her eyes closed on their own. The only sounds in the room were of three bodies breathing and the steady beeping of her monitors. Her mind started to manipulate the sounds. Within seconds of her eyes being closed she felt and heard Jim's breath against her ear. A moment later she saw him above her.

Sleep never came for Quinn

December 27 – 10:15 AM

"Quinn, there's someone here to see you…" A nurse stepped aside, revealing an unfamiliar blonde man in the doorway.

Quinn instantly froze at the sight of him. She instantly felt uncomfortable with a man in the room with her. Even though her mind told her that nothing would happen. That that man wasn't Jim. "Can we help you?" Rachel spoke up after noticing her wife's panic.

The man stayed near the doorway. He felt a little intimidated by the way the two brunette women were looking at him. "My… my name's Sam Evans… I'm the one that found her and brought her –" He never had a chance to finish his sentence as Rachel threw herself into a hug with the stranger who saved her wife's life.

Even after his statement Quinn's body wouldn't relax. Her brain was telling her it was alright. But her flight mode had already kicked in and she felt the need to get as far away from him as possible.

It didn't go unnoticed by Santana who physically pried her friend off of the poor half-strangled man. "Let's talk outside." She ushered them outside, leaving her own wife alone with a broken Quinn.

"I wish he'd never found me." Quinn's words were so soft that Brittany barely heard them. Instead of responding, she just moved closer to her and sat in the chair that Rachel had just abandoned.

"Come on Rach. Let the poor man breath." Santana pulled her friend away from the taller man. As soon as they'd exited the room Rachel reattached her arms around Sam's neck.

"I want you to tell me everything about when you found her. Please. I need to know everything. Where did you find her? What was she wearing? What were you doing out that late on Christmas?"

Sam looked at the Latina with wide eyes. He was slightly stunned by the small brunette's onslaught of questions. "Don't worry Mr. Evans, she tends to get a bit excitable."

"Sam… you guys can call me Sam…" He made his way to some chairs along the wall. "I was going home from work… I saw this snow covered like… lump in the road." He watched the shorter brunette take over the chair beside him. "So I slowed down. Then I got closer and realized it was a woman…" His mind instantly started to wander back to the moment he found her.

December 25 – 8:55PM
-Two Days Prior-

His fingers drummed on his steering wheel, matching the beat of the song that played on the radio as he drove along the back road. Sam was on his way home from work. He hated having to work on Christmas Day. It meant time away from his wife and son. But it also meant double time for the eight hours he pulled that day. Extra money meant extra gifts for his wife and six year old. He'd do anything for them.

"Damn snow." He slowly eased off the gas pedal when he saw the roads ahead of him getting a brighter shade of white.

His hand reached out to change his truck into 4WD. That's when he saw it. At first he assumed it was just a snow drift. Something that wasn't uncommon in late December. The closer he got the more and more it resembled something other than snow. It was something covered in snow. And whatever it was, it wasn't moving. He shifted his truck to park and put the emergency brake on before sliding on his gloves and exiting the vehicle to check out the lump in the road.

The closer he got, the more visible a human silhouette became. He spotted blonde hair that was nearly the same color as his own, he saw a long black trench coat covering a lean body. "Hello?" He called out. Suddenly Sam felt the strange feeling that he would be ambushed by mutated creatures from the woods. After shaking off the fact that his wife was right and he watched too many horror movies, he knelt down and rolled the figure onto her back. "Ma'am?" He called out, trying to rouse the woman from her slumber.

When she didn't respond he pressed his fingers to the pulse point in her neck. She was alive, but barely. Without a second thought he scooped her up into his arms and ran back to his truck.

During the ride to the hospital he kept glancing at her. Under the battered and bruised exterior Sam could tell she was an older woman, probably nearly 40. He could also tell she was a beautiful woman. How could somebody do something like this to anybody, let alone a woman. Sam felt his blood boil. He didn't know the woman who was unconscious in the passenger seat of his truck, but he felt the overwhelming need to protect her.

His mind instantly ran to thoughts of what he would do if it was his own wife that went missing. He shook his head before pressing his foot harder on the gas pedal to get back into town to Plattsburgh General Hospital.

"I stayed here until they told me that they'd called you. She woke up two hours after I brought her in." He wrapped one of his arms around Rachel's shoulder and held the woman tight to his side as she cried. "Do… they know what happened?"

Santana eyed the man up and down for a moment. She took note of his clean cut appearance and the wedding band on his finger. A family man. He had a wife of his own. Santana was always a good judge of character, and her initial reading of the man told her that it was safe. That Sam was one of those few 'good guys' out there who wouldn't lift a finger to hurt a fly. "She was beat pretty bad. Other than that we have no idea. She won't talk."

Rachel finally lifted her head from Sam's shoulder and wiped her eyes. "Look at me. Where are my manners." She politely extended her hand to the man beside her who took it. "My name's Rachel Berry-Fabray…"

"I'm Santana Lopez." Santana just raised her hand to wave at the man. They both received a small smile and wave in return.

"You saved me wife Sam. If – if it wasn't for you Quinn could have… she would have…" She couldn't even finish her sentence before tears overtook her again.

"Rachel?" Santana spoke to get her friend's attention. Once Rachel looked up, the Latina nodded her head toward two approaching police officers. One male, one female. "We should get back in there."

"If you guys don't mind, I'm gonna stick around for a while. I'm concerned about her even though I don't even know her." He smiled softly up at Santana and Rachel who were now standing in front of him. "My wife will probably be by shortly too. I told her everything that happened."

Rachel just nodded. "Thank you Sam." She hurried back into her wife's room just moments before the two cops came in. Sure, Rachel had been warned of the officers' arrival, but actually seeing them brought the true reality of the situation crashing down onto her shoulders. "Good morning."

Quinn's eyes never moved from the sheets on her bed. She was hyper aware of the new people in her room. Her breaths were shaking in and out of her lungs. But she forced herself to remain calm for the simple reason being – they were police officers. "Good morning ma'am." The female officer spoke. "I'm Officer Thompson, and this is my partner Officer Fields, we were hoping-"

"No!" Quinn's voice echoed in the small room. It drew everybody's attention at the suddenness of it. "No. No. No." She kept shaking her head and chanting 'no.' She didn't even react when Rachel gently picked up her hand in an attempt to calm her. It was no good.

"Can we have a moment alone?" Rachel looked up at everybody with pleading eyes. Once the cops and their friends were gone. Rachel boldly cupped her wife's cheeks. "Quinn… Baby… look at me. Please. It's just us. Nobody else. Just us."

Quinn took several deep breaths to get her racing heart back under control. She was torn. Torn between pulling away and pulling the brunette closer. "I can't." Was all she was able to spit out.

"Talk to me baby. You can't what?"

The blonde completely lost it at those words. Her entire body shook with uncontrollable cries. "F – Fi – Fields…" Was all she could get out in between her loud sobs and gasps for air.

Rachel used her thumbs to wipe away the shed tears from her wife's cheeks. She stared deep into sad, broken hazel eyes. "Fields?" The name stuck on her tongue and in her mind. "Jim Fields?" Her eyes widened at the heart breaking sobs that Quinn could no longer contain. It was a name that she'd never forgotten in the last ten years. It was the name she'd heard her wife screaming countless times in the middle of the night as she would wake up covered in cold sweat. "Oh god…"

The brunette moved up to the bed beside her wife and enveloped her tightly in her arms. Quinn's body stiffened but she made no attempt to pull away. She needed the comfort, love, and support that only Rachel's arms and scent could offer to her. "Stay with me." She whispered against a mess of brunette hair that was brushing against her face.

"Of course. Do… do you want the police officers to come back in?"

"Not the man… Please not the man."

"Alright, baby I'll be right back. I promise." It took several minutes before Quinn would even let go of Rachel. Once she did, the brunette hurried to the door and called for Officer Thompson. The older man understood the sensitivity of the situation and excused himself to go and question Sam. "See I told you I'd be right back." Rachel retook her seat on the bed beside Quinn and wrapped her arms securely around the taller woman.

The blonde melted into the touch. A simple embrace she hadn't realized she missed so much until she felt it again. "Hi there Quinn. I was hoping we could talk some." The younger officer took a seat beside the blonde's bed. Quinn just nodded, her eyes closed as she snuggled in closer to Rachel's body. "Do you want her to stay?" Again Quinn nodded. "Alright, mind if I ask who she is?"

Quinn mumbled against Rachel's neck. "My wife."

Officer Thompson nodded before pulling a notepad out of her breast pocket as well as a pen. "You can call me Julia if you'd like." She waited for Quinn to calm down some. It broke her heart to have to see the older woman so torn apart. It was only the officer's second year on the job, and working in a rather small town, the crime of rape wasn't something that was dealt with very often. "Can we talk about what happened?"

Quinn's entire body began to tremble as the memories flooded into her mind again. "Baby, look at me." Rachel cupped the attorney's cheeks and forced their eyes to lock together. "I know it's hard. But you have to tell them what happened."

She just nodded. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about anything that happened to her over the course of six days. "His name's Jim Fields…" Julia instantly understood why the battered woman didn't want the other officer in the room. "He was suppose to still be in jail…"

"How do you know him?" Julia was busy making notes on her notepad.

"I'm the reason he spent ten years in prison… this is all my fault." Her eyes slammed shut. It was her fault. He told her that every single day he saw her.

"None of this is your fault Quinn." Rachel took the blonde's hands in her own, squeezing them to give her the support she needed.

"What was he in prison for?" Julia asked next.

"…for the exact same thing he did to me."

Rachel no longer fought the tears that threatened her eyes. Quinn had just confirmed her fears and the doctor's suspicion of rape. "You mean he…?"

"Six times. Maybe more…" If she just talked without thinking then maybe she'd be able to get it all out. "There were a few times where I think he knocked me out." She started to feel Rachel's tears soak through her hospital gown.

"How did you get out?"

"He told me he was getting bored with me. On Christmas morning he changed my shackles to chains… it was some kind of… of sick present from him. Th – they were loose on my wrists and ankles. When he told me I had until New Years…" Her voice cracked near the end of her sentence. She couldn't talk anymore. She could hardly even think of anything but the Jim's voice and the softness of Rachel's skin. Such a conflicting mixture of feelings was running through her body in that moment.

Julia let out a heavy sigh. "We have to run a rape kit Quinn… to search for DNA evidence…" She watched the blonde's reaction. She hated having to even bring it up, knowing Quinn wouldn't want anybody but her relatives touching her after what had happened with a man that was nearly a stranger to her. When Quinn nodded the officer stood up to go and speak with her partner and get a nurse to administer it.

She didn't want anybody touching her. Hell, she was still torn over the fact that Rachel was touching her. She wanted to run far away, but she never wanted to let go all at the same time. The attorney in her knew how important the kit was to the case to get Jim back in prison where he belonged. She knew the ins and outs of the legal system and knew it was needed. The victim in her didn't want anybody touching her filthy, disgusting body.

Wow, yea I'm realizing how slow time wise this story is going. But I know you all won't mind it being long. Just wish I could get it written faster that way I could post more quickly. Just to give you an idea of how slow time's going...

Chapter 11 - December 31

Then after that time will start to skip some more...but basically until then each chapter covers 1 day. That's slow, even for me. So I'm currently estimating this to be 30-40 chapters. Not entirely sure as of right now since I'm only on chapter 12 and the drama's getting better...but it's so dangerously close to going right back down the drain :D

Don't forget to review! You guys have been great on reviews. With an average of 12 per chapter...can we hit 100 reviews with just this chapter? Maybe? That would be 16 reviews for the chapter. I know you guys have it in you. Pretty please? *begs*

Reviews help motivate me to write faster.