Chapter 2
"Quinn, I still don't see what any of this has to do with Brittany's behavior today."
"I'm getting there, Mr. Schue." Quinn sighed. "The Pierces were kind enough to go out and get Santana a cell phone and added her to their plan but there was nothing they could do about getting Santana a car so she's been riding in with Brittany every day." She didn't add that Santana had offered to pay for the phone and her part of the plan but the Pierces had emphatically declined her offer.
"Yesterday, Britt had a student council meeting after school. Santana went to the library to wait for her. Britt texted her that she was going to stop in the rest room and then she'd be ready to go."
XOXOXOXOXO
(Flashback, Quinn's POV)
Quinn glanced at the phone and, seeing it was Brittany, quickly answered.
"Hey, Britt! What's up?"
All she heard were broken sobs on the other end.
"Britt? What's wrong? What happened?"
"S-s-santa-a-na," more sobbing, "h-hos-s-p-pit-a-al."
Quinn's stomach dropped. "I'm on my way. Hang in there, Britt."
Quinn hung up and hurried downstairs.
"Quinnie? Where are you going? It's almost time for dinner." Judy Fabray called out.
"Gotta go, mom. Talk to you later." She didn't bother slowing down as she fled he house.
The normal thirty minute drive to the hospital took her fifteen. She ran into the emergency room and her ears were assaulted with the most heartrending sound she'd ever heard. It was a sound that would haunt her nightmares; a cross between keening and a banshee's wail. She followed the sound and found a despondent Brittany sitting in a corner, knees pulled to her chest, rocking back and forth, the sound issuing forth from her lips seeming to emanate from the depths of her soul. She hurried over, noticing two security guards heading toward the heartbroken girl.
"Brittany, honey, I'm here." She wrapped her arms around Brittany and held her tightly, rocking along with her.
"Ma'am, she needs to quiet down or we're going to have to ask her to leave or remove her."
Quinn felt her temper flare and flashed them a Quinn Fabray 'I'm the HBIC' glare. "Back off! The love of her life was just brought in. I think she's well within her rights to be upset." She growled at the rent-a-cops. Both of them just looked at her and backed away. Good to know she still had it.
Quinn shook her head and rubbed soothing circles over Brittany's back. Crooning softly in the other blonde's ear and rocking her gently until Brittany was finally able to calm down and talk to her.
"They wouldn't let me ride with her. I'm not 'family'. I tried telling them that she had no family but they wouldn't listen. Nobody will. They won't tell me anything; won't let me see her." Brittany started sniffling again. "Quinn … what am I gonna do if …"
"Hey. No. Don't think like that. Did you call your mom? Maybe she knows what to do?"
Brittany shook her head and pulled out her phone, dialing her mom but she couldn't talk as she broke down again. Quinn gently took Brittany's phone from her hand.
"Whitney? It's Quinn. I don't know what happened, Britt hasn't been able to tell me. Santana's in the hospital and nobody will tell us anything because we're not 'family'. What do we do?"
"Hold tight, girls. I'll be there soon."
Quinn hung up and gave Brittany her phone back. She stood up and offered Brittany her hand. "Come on, these chairs aren't the most comfortable but I'm sure they're better than the floor."
Brittany took Quinn's hand and let herself be led to a nearby chair. She had calmed down but was pale and her eyes were rimmed red.
"Britt … what happened?"
Britt looked at Quinn her face crumpling.
"I had a student council meeting. Santana went to wait for me in the library. I texted her when I was done and told her I had to stop in the bathroom and then we could go. She texted back that she'd meet me at the car." Brittany ran a hand through her hair.
"Britt! You're bleeding …"
Brittany looked at her hand and shook her head. "Not my blood." She cleared her throat and looked up, trying to stop a fresh flood of tears. "I walked out to the parking lot and saw Kyle Danvers and Kevin Everhardt near my car. Kyle was standing there and Kevin was pulling at what I thought was a pile of clothes on the ground." The tears started slipping down her face again, her voice hoarse with emotion. "I got closer and saw it was Santana on the ground; Kevin was trying to pull off Santana's spanx and Kyle had his dick in his hand." Brittany shook her head as if trying to rid her mind of the memory of Santana lying helpless on the ground.
"I dialed 911 and started yelling at them to get away from her. I overheard Kyle say 'You shouldn't have fought us, bitch. Just trying to straighten your spic dyke ass out' and Kevin said 'Yeah, and we'll be taking care of blondie next.' They turned and started walking toward me until they realized I was on the phone and they took off running." She choked out a sob. "Quinn, Santana was barely conscious, both eyes were swollen shut, and she was having trouble breathing. It seemed to take forever for the ambulance to get there. And then …" she took a deep breath "they wouldn't let me ride with her." Britt was trembling with rage and sorrow and half a dozen unidentified emotions.
"Britt … let's get you cleaned up, okay?" Quinn suggested softly, concerned that her friend had driven in this condition. "We can't do anything until your mom gets here."
Brittany nodded and let Quinn lead her to the nearest ladies room. Once she was cleaned up they headed back to the waiting room. Whitney showed up five minutes later.
"Oh, sweetie," Whitney pulled Brittany into a strong hug, "give me a few minutes and we'll be able to find out what's going on." Whitney let Brittany go and hurried over to the nurses' station and handed them a sheaf of papers.
The nurse nodded and the two women conversed for a few minutes before Whitney came back over to where Quinn and Brittany waited.
"Brittany, honey," Whitney started, her eyes filled with sympathy, "it's not the worst news but it's not exactly good news."
Quinn gripped Brittany's hand as Whitney went on. "She has a lot of internal bleeding along with a lot of bruises and lacerations. She's in surgery right now. They'll let us know as soon as they know more."
Brittany just nodded, her eyes vacant. She looked so broken that it made Quinn's heart ache.
Quinn cleared her throat. "Why did they tell you anything?"
"Well, when Santana came to live with us, I knew there could be some legal problems. She's only seventeen," Whitney explained, "so I went and talked to Maribel and had her sign papers naming me Santana's legal guardian and health proxy. Brittany couldn't be her health proxy because she won't be eighteen until the end of next month and Santana can't assign a health proxy, anyway, because she's only seventeen." Whitney frowned. "I also didn't want to have to worry about the Lopezes accusing us of kidnapping her even though they threw her out."
Brittany looked at her mom before throwing her arms around her. "Thank you, mom." Her mother hugged her tightly, whispering softly in her ear as she stroked Brittany's hair.
Quinn spotted two police officers coming toward them. One was mid-forties, thinning salt-and-pepper brown hair, and build of a former high school athlete gone to seed; the paunch was straining the buttons on his blue uniform shirt and his nose had the tell-tale veins of a man who liked to drink a little too much. The second officer was younger; he looked not much older than Quinn. Probably fresh from the academy with that eager, fresh-scrubbed look, reddish blond hair still in a high-and-tight.
"Brittany Pierce?" The older officer asked dully. "We got a 911 report about an assault?
Brittany looked up at them. "Yes. I made the call. I came out of school and saw two guys assaulting my girlfriend."
"Did you recognize them?" The younger officer was taking notes while the older officer looked bored and … uncaring.
"Yeah. I did. I told the 911 dispatcher. They were Kyle Danvers and Kevin Everhardt. They go to my school. McKinley."
The older officer asked a few more questions about "the victim" and what Brittany saw and heard and Brittany answered them the best she could. The officers then walked over to the nurses' station and Quinn convinced Brittany to hit the vending machines with her. While they were deciding on junk food and drinks, the officers walked past them apparently not noticing the girls standing there.
"Look, Dunnigan," the older one was saying, "when we get back to the station … take your time with that report. Then maybe bury it under a stack of others."
"But, Sarge, we've got the names of the guys that did this. Shouldn't we at least bring them in for questioning?"
"Dunnigan …" the 'Sarge' said with exaggerated patience, "we're not gonna go and ruin the lives of two decent young men who were just trying to straighten out a spic dyke. You get me?"
"But …"
"Unless you wanna be walking the mall next week just do what I'm telling you to do!" 'Sarge' snapped at the younger man before they passed out of range of the girls' hearing.
Quinn grabbed Brittany around the waist. "Britt! Attacking them will accomplish nothing but getting you in trouble!"
"Quinn … you heard them! They're not gonna do anything!"
"Britt, honey, there are other ways. We'll get them. I promise you."
Brittany deflated in Quinn's arms. "Fine."
They finished getting their snacks and went to sit back down with Whitney.
(end flashback)
XOXOXOXOXO
Quinn looked around the room and saw dropped jaws and averted eyes. Sugar was texting furiously on her phone. Puck walked over and slipped an arm around Quinn's shoulders.
"A doctor came out about six hours later. Santana suffered serious internal injuries causing a lot of internal bleeding. Her spleen was ruptured and had to be removed. She had several cracked ribs and one of her lungs collapsed." Quinn leaned into Puck as she recited what the doctor told them. "Her face was bruised and battered. She had a lot of bruises and lacerations; some required stitches. The worst of it was her …" Quinn swallowed thickly, "her brain is swollen. They had to put her into a medically induced coma to help her heal. They don't know if there will be permanent damage or not. They won't know until … unless …" Quinn closed her eyes, tears sliding free, "she wakes up and there's no guarantee that she will." Her voice drops to almost a whisper. "And they still won't let Brittany or me in to see her. The only one allowed to see her is Whitney."
"We went to the D.A.'s office this morning after I convinced Brittany to go home and get a shower and some clothes not covered in Santana's blood. Brittany sat there and basically drove the receptionist crazy with Lord Tubbington stories until an A.D.A. came out and talked to us." She quirked a smile and shook her head at the memory. "The A.D.A. listened to what Brittany had to say and promised Britt she'd open an investigation into the police officers. She told Brittany that she'd make sure that it would be handled properly and wouldn't just be swept under the rug."
"Then we came to school. Britt wanted to talk to Coach Beiste. She told the coach what happened and Coach was furious. She kicked them off the team and told Brittany she'd write an e-mail and send it out to any colleges looking to recruit either of them." Quinn scowled. "Do you know the two of them came in laughing about what they'd done? Bragging about how they'd shown that," Quinn swallowed hard and closed her eyes, "'carpet-munching spic dyke' what it was like to have a real man' and how they couldn't wait to 'teach blondie the same lesson'." Quinn shook her head and opened her eyes, bright with un-shed tears, before choking out a laugh. "Let's just say that Finn's isn't the only broken nose today." She shrugged. "Coach Beiste will swear they fell. Then Britt went and talked to all her teachers to get her classwork for the next week. I'll be bringing her finished assignments in and getting whatever new ones she has."
Quinn straightened up and moved away from Puck. She wiped away her tears and shot another look at Mr. Schue.
"Actions have consequences, right Mr. Schue? So, Finn outs Santana and Santana responds by slapping him and it's HER fault for attacking him 'unprovoked'." She slides a picture, one of the nurses had surreptitiously slipped it to her, across the piano. "THAT is what an UNPROVOKED attack looks like Mr. Schue," she's vaguely gratified when he blanches at the sight. "Seems like Santana, and Brittany by extension, paid all the consequences for Finn's action. The only consequences he seems to have suffered is a slap to the face and a broken nose. It also seems like those consequences, however, are bound to boomerang back on Santana and Brittany."
She looks at Finn. "You're not the hero everyone paints you as. You tell yourself whatever you have to in order to believe you're a 'good guy' but you're really not. You told Santana that you outed her because you were 'worried about her' because she was your 'first' and that 'meant something to you'. Huh," Quinn scoffs, "because who do you think held her that night while she cried after you told her 'I don't feel anything because it didn't mean anything'? Hint: it was Brittany. Britt told me about it during 'Lady Music Week'."
Quinn paused for a moment trying to control her feelings. "If you were really worried about her you'd have talked to her PRIVATELY not outed her in the middle of a crowded hallway. And I've heard from more than a few people that it wasn't something you just blurted out without thinking. She was halfway down the hall when you cruelly shouted it out. You WANTED to hurt her because you're just not quick enough to insult her as well as she insulted you. So you said the one thing guaranteed to absolutely destroy her. Then you doubled down and tried to put the doubt in her mind that Brittany loved her."
"Really, Quinn, he did do the Lady …"
"Shut up, Rachel. Lady Music Week was bullshit. It was an attempt by Finn to make himself feel and look better. That week had absolutely nothing to do with supporting Santana. Evidenced by the fact that … none of the ladies actually sang except for Katy Perry's questionable 'I Kissed A Girl'." Quinn rolled her eyes. "Puck sang Melissa Etheridge's 'I'm the Only One'. Really? Santana's ex-boyfriend sings 'I'm the Only One' to Santana in front of Santana's GIRLFRIEND?" Quinn snorts and shakes her head. "At best it was ill-conceived. At worst it was offensive and insulting."
Quinn looks at all of them. "The most interesting thing, to me, about all of this? Not one of you ever thought to question why Santana was so good at vicious insults but any insults thrown her way just rolled off her back. None of you asked yourselves why she threw the insults around." Quinn shrugged. "But I don't really care to enlighten you." She looks at Mike. "Other than Boy-Chang … did Santana ever insult you?" Off Mike's head-shake she nods. "Huh. Interesting, right?"
She looks at Mr. Schue with slight disdain. "Actions have consequences. Too bad the actor isn't always the one who pays them. So, like I said, go tell Figgins whatever you want. Brittany is beyond caring about school at the moment. She hasn't seen Santana since she was loaded into that ambulance. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go drive my best friend to the hospital so she can sit in a cold waiting room because, even though they won't let her see Santana and won't tell her anything, she doesn't want to 'leave Santana alone' and she's afraid Dr. Lopez may show up and cause trouble.
"We left early this morning and I know Brittany is starting to get anxious about how long we've been gone."
With that, Quinn turned on her heel and stalked out of the choir room. That had taken far longer than she intended and she's sure Brittany is getting antsy. She hears footsteps following her and groans internally.
"Um … Quinn?"
Quinn turns and finds Sugar standing there fidgeting and does her best to control her impatience.
"Yeah, Sugar?"
"So, you know my dad is rich, right?" Sugar hurries on before Quinn can snap a her. "Well he, like, donates a lot of money to the hospital and stuff. And he's on the board of directors or something? I texted him and he … um … he talked to some people at the hospital. By the time you get back there you and, uh, Brittany, and Mercedes should all be allowed to go in to see Santana. And, um, he was gonna make sure Dr. Lopez couldn't get in and get some sort of liaison person for Brittany so if she needs anything all she has to do is ask."
Quinn stares at Sugar as if she's never seen the girl before.
"Santana … she wasn't exactly nice to me but she only really insulted me once. She was never really mean and she even told some guy to back off when he was giving me a hard time one day. I really like her even though she's kinda scary. And Brittany is awesome. I … what's the point of having money if you can't help your friends, right? Just … tell Brittany I'm sorry and I hope Santana gets better soon, okay?"
Quinn steps forward and wraps Sugar in a tight hug. "Thank you, Sugar." She steps back. "You're a better friend than you know … and not just because you have money." Quinn smiles at the girl before heading back out to the parking lot.