She wakes in a cold sweat. She had another nightmare; only, they are never really nightmares, they are her nightmarish reality. The reality of her awful past that she revisits whenever the sun goes down and her eyes close.
She looks at her alarm clock. She has an hour before she has to get up for school. She knows that she will not be able to go back to sleep, nor does she want to sleep. When she sleeps, she dreams about the past she wants to forget, but she is aware that the past cannot stay buried.
She can hide behind her Dads and she can hide behind Denise and she can hide behind school, but she cannot hide from herself, not when she is alone.
Rachel forces herself out of her bed and walks over to her treadmill. Her Daddy bought it for her a year after he and Dad adopted her. They figured it would help her take out some of her frustrations and keep her focused.
She runs and runs and runs, continuously running in place. She sees the tears before she feels them; tears of betrayal, of pain, of anger, and of resentment.
She stops running and steps off the treadmill. She will not do this. She will not allow her past to control her, but with a sigh, she accepts that it does control her. The important thing is to not let it define her, though she thinks it may already be a little too late.
"NOAH PUCKERMAN YOU GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!"
Quinn does not know how on earth she ended up on the McKinley football field chasing Noah Puckerman around in her cheer leading uniform on a windy day.
She thinks he has had this planned for ages or something, because her skirt is flying all over the place and she knows he can see her panties which has been his goal for years (actually, his goal has been to get inside), but like hell she would let him anywhere near her because one, he does not have the right equipment, and two, he is a total dick.
"Let me fuck you, Santana, and Brittany at the same time and I might talk about giving your journal back to you," he propositions. She stares at him in disbelief before launching herself at him, tackling him to the ground.
He stares up at her, smirking in that natural Puckerman way.
She yanks her journal from his hand and glares at him, prompting him to say, "You're so sexy when you're angry, babe."
She is half-tempted to spit in his face but she hears, "Noah? Quinn? What is going on here, if you don't mind me asking?" and immediately rolls off Puck and lands on the grass beside him.
Rachel is standing over them, looking somewhat amused, but mostly confused, and Quinn can feel the warmth spreading from her neck to her cheeks and dear god, she prays that her face does not match the color of her uniform.
"Oh, nothing," Quinn replies unconvincingly, watching as Puck stands and moves himself closer to Rachel, who looks clearly uncomfortable at their close proximity. Not that he notices. Or maybe he does and just does not care because this is Puck she is thinking about and Puck hardly thinks with the head he should be thinking with.
And like he even cares enough to pay attention to when a girl does not want to be near him. He is convinced he is the All Mighty Puckerone when he is in the sack, and maybe he is (she has heard a lot of stories, one she does not particularly want to hear ever again), but she does not care in the slightest.
"Need a hand?" Rachel asks her because obviously Puck does not care enough to ask, and Quinn finds herself smiling because Rachel's tone is soft and she sounds shy. Quinn likes shy.
"Yeah, thanks," she says nonchalantly, acting all calm, cool, collected, even though she feels everything but calm, cool, and collected when Rachel leans down and grabs her hand.
She knows she is staring too hard and that her eyes should be on Rachel's face, but as the girl pulls her up, Quinn's face is dangerously close to her chest and fuck, those boobs.
She mentally smacks herself for sounding so much like Puck, but she prides herself on the fact that she at least has the decency to not voice her perverse thoughts aloud.
"Aww how cute," Puck drawls sarcastically, winking at both girls. Quinn scoffs, disgusted. Rachel continues to look uncomfortable. "You gonna bang her, Q? 'Cause if not, I will totally take care of her for you... or we could both do her. Whichever you are more comfortable with."
"I can hear you, you insufferable jerk." Rachel steps away from Puck, moving so that she is standing beside Quinn. Her shoulder brushes against Quinn's and both girls blush deeply while Puck watches on in amusement, clearly unaffected by Rachel's insult. Not surprising.
"Babe, you know you want this, even if you do bat for the same team as Q here." His crude statements are never-ending. Normally Quinn would ignore him, but there is something about the look in Rachel's eyes, the way they are glossy and glazed over like she is visiting a place in her mind that she does not want to be, is making it impossible for her to pretend that how Puck is acting is not bothering her.
She finding herself wanting to take care of Rachel; she wants to protect her, to take her away to a place where whatever is hurting her cannot hurt her anymore.
She knows logically that whatever the petite brunette is hiding is not easily fixable; maybe she cannot fix her at all, but she wants to try. She wants to give her a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold, and lend her an ear to listen.
But she won't push. She can see that pushing would be a bad idea; pushing would push Rachel away instead of bring her closer, but Quinn honestly does want to try. She feels like she needs to because a girl as amazing as Rachel deserves to always be happy and smiling and okay.
"Screw you, Noah," Quinn seethes, taking Rachel by the hand (she fights to ignore the jolt of electricity that shoots through her entire body at the contact, but it is not easy) and leading her away from Puck.
"Anytime, Fabray!" Puck calls after her.
She flips him the bird over her shoulder with her free hand while walking with Rachel hand-in-hand towards the front entrance of the school. They manage to arrive seconds before the first bell rings, signaling the start of the school day.
Quinn hesitates before releasing Rachel's hand as they stop in the middle of the hallway. There are students rushing around them and it is the usual high school chaos, but to Quinn it is like it is merely her and Rachel.
"I appreciate what you did for me on the field," Rachel starts. She sounds unsure. "I... it was really uncomfortable for me to have Noah speaking to me in such a crass manner and I thank you for pretty much saving me back there. I had no clue how to handle him, so again," she pauses, taking a deep breath and then exhaling sharply, "thank you."
She wants to ask why it bothers Rachel to the extent that it appears to. She wants to ask what happened to her to make her so terrified of men because Rachel can deny it all she wants, but something about men scares her. Then again, Quinn is afraid of the answers, afraid she would not be able handle them.
Yet, she wants to ask because she wants to know Rachel which makes her feel creepy and insane because she has only known Rachel for a total of two days and it is too early for her to feel the way that she is starting to realize she does.
"No problem, Rach," she says, and it is killing her not to ask the questions that are nagging at her, but that look in Rachel's eyes is making it clear that if she were to ask now, Rachel would run and she does not want to chase away the girl she has been romantically interested in since that disaster that was her love for Santana.
"See you at lunch?" She hates how hopeful she sounds because it is so not like her to doubt herself or anything she does, but she is different around Rachel because she feels she has to tiptoe around her. She thinks of Rachel as someone who is fragile and she seems so broken that Quinn is afraid she may shatter should someone push her too hard.
Rachel beams at her and Quinn thinks being careful may just be worth it in the end even though she never does anything carefully anymore.
Of course, it never hurts to change. "Where else would I go?" Quinn knows the question is a rhetorical one, so she does not answer. She simply marvels at the beautiful, almost blinding smile Rachel gives her before they both turn and head for their first class of the day.
And Quinn does not know about Rachel, but she sure as hell knows that her focus will be off all day.
Tap, tap, tap. She stares straight ahead, her eyes seeing that her teacher is writing and her ears hearing tiny snippets of the lesson, but not a single one of her senses is fully registering anything that is being said or written.
She is thinking of Quinn and she silently reprimands herself for wondering if the pretty blonde is thinking of her, too. Quinn has been extremely sweet to her the past couple of days and she cannot keep herself from wondering what on earth she has done to deserve to be treated so kindly by an absolute stranger.
She wants to know Quinn, which she thinks makes her a bit of a hypocrite because she cannot allow Quinn to know her, not the her that she has kept buried for the past three years.
Some aspects of her past need to stay hidden because she does not want the pity. She does not want to be thought of as the weak girl, the one who is easily broken even though she feels she is easily broken.
She stays away from men because she does not want any man to get the chance to finish what all those other men started... her mother's boyfriends.
She hears a loud smack and she winces, a scream escaping her before she realizes that the smacking sound was the sound of her teacher dropping her ruler.
She can feel eyes boring into her from every side and she turns her head to see her classmates and her teacher practically gaping at her.
She instantly jumps out of her seat, not bothering to grab her books as she bolts out of the classroom and continuing to run until she is outside of the school. She collapses against the front wall of the school building, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her head against her knees.
Her heart hurts, her head hurts, her everything hurts.
Another Joe; this time with blonde hair instead of brown like the last one, not that it mattered to Rachel because the men in her mother's life had stopped mattering to her after the first Joe her mother had dated after Rachel's dad's death.
The now ten year old Rachel was hiding behind the kitchen counter (a place she found herself hiding in more often than one would deem necessary for a little girl), watching as her mother's current boyfriend paced back and forth in the kitchen, muttering about bratty ten year olds and bitchy mothers who were going to get what was coming to them (she knew what those words meant; she had heard them plenty of times over the years and she felt the fear swelling inside of her, finding herself unable to push it down and bury it like she had done in the past).
A loud smack erupted throughout the kitchen and little Rachel jumped on instinct, her eyes widening as she met the gaze of a very angry Joe.
She knew that look; it was such an evil look, one of pure hatred. What she had done to be so hated by a man who hardly knew her, she hadn't a clue, nor had she had a clue why all the others had hated her. She was just a child. A girl. Defenseless.
Her body tensed as Joe approached her, swiftly grabbing her by the arm. Tears sprung into her eyes, but they did not fall; they hardly did anymore.
Joe's grip tightened on her arm and her eyes closed of their own accord. A squeak of terror escaped her as his hand connected with her face, but she did not move as he stepped away from her, that look of hatred still in his dark eyes.
She touched her finger to her lips, looking at it as she pulled it away from her mouth. All she saw was red, but she felt nothing. She was just numb.
"Rachel?" The soft spoken tone of Quinn interrupts Rachel's thoughts, or rather, memory. She wipes at her eyes, knowing that she has been crying and hating that Quinn has to see it because she does not like being seen as weak in the eyes of others.
Quinn is looking at her with that dreaded look of pity. "Yeah?" She is trying to keep herself from growing defensive because she does not want to scare Quinn away. She is too used to scaring people away when they try to get in and Quinn is one person she does not want to lose so quickly.
"What are you hiding from, Rach?" Quinn asks, seating herself beside the brunette. Rachel looks away from her, unsure how to answer because she knows she is not going to tell Quinn what is wrong with her (she wants to, she has wanted to talk about it for years but the pain is too raw, and it is too hard), but she does not want to tell a lie, either, because she is tired of lying to everyone. Lying grows exhausting after so long.
"It's complicated. I'm sorry," she says with a shrug, her eyes focused on the ground because she is hesitant to look at Quinn. She is afraid of what the girl is going to say, of what expression she has on her face.
If the pity is still there, she will be unable to cope; she will be unable to continue hiding, to continue fighting.
"Don't be," Quinn tells her softly and Rachel finally looks at her. The pity is gone, thankfully. Quinn touches Rachel's shoulder; her touch is feather light, comforting. "But if you ever want to talk, I'm here, okay? I won't judge you."
Rachel doesn't say anything, she merely rests her head on Quinn's shoulder. Quinn wraps her arms around Rachel, pulling her close and for the first time since her dads showed up and saved her life, Rachel feels safe, secure. Wanted.
XXX
"Trevor told Jason who told Mary who told Craig who told Angelica who told Matty who told me that Ms. Robinson was fired because she tried to poison Trevor's food which is kind of funny because Trevor is a total jerk, but how-"
"Denise!" Rachel interrupts her sister, dropping her book bag onto the couch and throwing herself onto it, her legs resting over the arm of the couch. "Would you pretty please quit talking a mile a minute? I did not catch a word of anything you just said."
Denise sits on Rachel's legs, which is not exactly comfortable, but Rachel does not move an inch because she knows Denise is trying to get her to sit up and she does not feel like moving at the moment.
Denise makes herself comfortable and rests her head against the back of the couch. "I don't know why you have to be so grumpy all the time. Are you on your period? Daddy tells me you start acting grumpy when it is your time of the month. I hope I don't get like that with mine... do you think I will? Is it gross? Why do we even bleed from our private places-"
"Denise." She does not like interrupting her sister because she knows that it is rude and sometimes it hurts Denise's feelings, but she swears that her little sister does not know when to shut up at times.
Granted, Rachel has those moments herself, but not nearly as frequently as Denise.
"I will have you know that it is not my time of the month and yes, I am being grumpy and I apologize, but I have not exactly had the best day."
Denise's expression changes from annoyed to concerned in the blink of an eye and Rachel immediately regrets ever having said anything in the first place.
Denise knows a little about Rachel's past, but when Rachel told her, she spared her some of the grislier details. She hadn't even wanted to tell Denise; in fact, she had begged her dads to keep her past a secret from her sister, but a few months after Rachel had passed the six month trial, Denise had been the one to walk into the room after Rachel had awoken from a nightmare.
Denise had refused to leave the room, swearing up and down that she would stay until Rachel told her what was wrong because "it's nothing" had not been an acceptable excuse for her.
Rachel had shared with her the gist of what had happened to her in the past; her biological father's passing when she was only a toddler, her mom's addiction to alcohol and drugs, and the scary men who had hurt her in very bad ways (she had not elaborated because Denise had been too young for an elaboration and in Rachel's mind, she was still too young to know the whole truth).
"Is it the scary men again?" Denise asks quietly and Rachel's only response is to nod because what is she supposed to say? She cannot tell her sister the content of her nightmares; content that is real and horrifying. Denise, who is young and vibrant and happy does not deserve to carry such a burden around with her. No one does.
Rachel has no choice because it happened to her, so she will carry the burden around with her for the rest of her life, but she will not allow anyone else to do it for her. Her dads already do and she feels awful for it; she will not push it off on anyone else, not ever again.
"They can't hurt you anymore, sissy," Denise whispers, nudging Rachel gently with her elbow. "Dad and Daddy won't let anything ever happen to you, and neither will I because I love you and they do, too. I promise."
Rachel smiles because even though the words are naive and she does not believe them, she appreciates the effort and feels good knowing that she has people who care about her; people who she loves who love her. She has a family, a good one. A functional one.
"I know," are the last words spoken between the two and they sit in a comfortable silence watching That 70s Show until both girls fall asleep, and for the first time in a long time, Rachel sleeps a dreamless sleep.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am taking a whack at this story again. Granted, it has been over a year since I have last updated and I apologize for that, but I had lost inspiration and have found it again just recently. However, I make no promises that the inspiration will stay. It may come and go, but I shall try my best to finish this story even if it kills me.