Hi All! Sorry for not posting in forever! I have been so busy but I really don't want to abandon this story. This chapter is a bit shorter than some of the others and not as well edited but I really wanted to get something up. Also- I'm kind of worried that Puck isn't totally in character but I mostly wrote him how I would like him to be not the jerk he is on the show :). I would really love to get some more reviews, they really inspire me to publish which I definitely need right now!
The next morning, the last place on earth that Rachel wanted to go was school. Her head hurt from the lack of sleep she had gotten and her stomach was already nauseated. Her bed seemed like a much better place to spend the day then in a crowded hallway full of people talking about her. She reached over to at least get some sort of cuddling from Quinn, but found her not in the bed. She looked around for her and found her sitting in the corner, the light of her iPhone illuminating her face giving it a spooky feel in the dark room.
"Good morning." Rachel murmured to let Quinn know she was awake. Quinn dashed off a quick group message before replying to Rachel.
"Good morning, my star." She walked over to Rachel and joined her in the bed, wrapping both herself and the blankets around Rachel. "How are you feeling?"
"Not the best." Rachel responded honestly. "I just can't imagine what its going to be like today."
"I know, baby. But you are Rachel Berry and you can do anything."
After a few minutes of needed cuddling, they got ready for school. Rachel wore one of her least favorite outfits, one she wouldn't mind getting slushy stained.
Once Beth had two kisses on the top of her head, they started the journey to school. The relatively quiet car ride was over quickly and before she knew it, Rachel was unbuckling her seat belt. However, when her hand instinctively went to reach out for the door handle, she realized it wasn't there. Instead, Puck was standing at the ready, with his arm out for her to take.
"Puck?" Rachel said as she climbed out of the car, "What are you doing?"
In reply, Puck chuckled. "Now Berry, you didn't think we would let you go in there without backup?" Rachel turned to Quinn, still confused.
"Did you set this up?" Smiling, Quinn shook her head. She was just as lost as Rachel. She thought back to her conversation with Santana yesterday and comprehension dawned on her face.
"I told you Santana was fiercely loyal." And with that, Puck escorted Rachel to the front doors where Matt and Mike were already posed. As if it was a military operation, Puck debriefed Rachel.
"Alright so the goal is pretty much no slushies and no harrassment. I don't know, Santana had a formal something… Whatever. Pretty much, San and Britt are at your locker and the other glee people are placed throughout the hallway. We checked and one of us are in all of your classes so we'll like take you to class and stuff." Rachel felt tears well up in her eyes. It was pretty awesome having people taking care of you.
"Okay, so, Matt, Mike operation begin." They both nodded in unison as Quinn and Rachel giggled. Taking Rachel's hand, Quinn took the first step into the building. As if rehearsed, the student body seemed to fall silent. Rachel continued to look forward, unwavering in her stare. Behind Puck, she felt safe and as she passed Kurt then Mercedes and lastly Tina and Artie, she didn't let the whispers or stares get to her.
As promised, Santana and Brittany were already at her locker when she arrived.
"Morning, Berry." Santana greeted harshly as she moved out of the way to let Rachel enter her combination. Her facade of bored indifference wasn't fooling anyone.
"Hi Rachel!" Brittany squealed. Rachel grinned at Brittany since it was pretty impossible not to. However, her grin was washed from her face as Karofsky and Azimo made their way over to the group.
"Well look who it is" Karofsky sneered, "The glee losers and their loser queen, Preggo."
Pucks hands balled up but Rachel gently put her hand on his arm as thought to calm him.
"Good morning, Dave." She replied cooly. Only Quinn could hear the slight quiver in her voice and feel the increased pressure in her handholding.
"Get out of here." Quinn demanded flashing him a HBIC glare.
"Look, Quinnie here is standing up for her girlyfriend. Isn't that adorable?" Puck looked like he was dying to punch him but Santana beat him to it. Stepping up closer, she stared right into his eyes. At WMHS Santana had more power than the entire football team put together. The name Santana Lopez was enough to make a freshman cry.
"Look, bud," She said with extra venom at the end of the word bud, "you can either get the fuck out of here or I can tell Coach Sylvester that you tripped me and we both know Coach Sylvester does not appreciate people injuring her cheerios." Recluctantly, Karofsky left the group as Santana flashed him a devilish grin.
Santana smiled and grabbed Brittany's hand, pulling her off to first period with out another word. Quinn pecked Rachel on the cheek.
"I'll see you later, Rach." She said. "I think I'm leaving you in good hands." She added with a gesture toward Puck.
"M' Lady." Puck responded, reaching his arm out to Rachel. She giggled and took it as she headed off in the opposite direction of Quinn.
Sitting next to Puck (who was protectively glaring at everyone who entered the classroom), Rachel felt safer than she ever had before in school. As she pulled out her notes and posed her pen to take notes on the American Revolution.
As the bell rang, Rachel wasn't surprised when Puck escorted her to second period. As she waved goodbye to Puck, Kurt pulled her into the seat next to him and babbled on about how Rachel expected not to be humiliated when she was wearing "that". However, Rachel's eyes were locked to the door that she knew her girlfriend would be entering in a matter of minutes.
"Rach?" Rachel took her eyes from the door at the sound of her name. "Rachel are you even listening to me?"
"Yeah of course…" Rachel replied as the bell rang. Quinn was not one to skip class. The teacher stepped in front of the class and began her lesson. Leaning over, Rachel whispered to Kurt. "Quinn's not here." He shrugged in response and furrowed his brow. She frowned. Reaching into her bag she grabbed for phone. Still in her bag, she lit it up and, with a glance to assure herself that her teacher was still facing the board, bent over to check her phone. She was disappointed to find no messages from Quinn or anyone else. She decided that Quinn must have just been called to talk to Miss. Pillsbury or something and resigned herself to pay attention to the lesson.
Fifteen minutes in to the lesson Rachel's thoughts were once again torn away from the lesson when Quinn entered the room, late pass and hand. Nodding, their elderly Pre-Calc. teacher directed Quinn to the empty seat next to Rachel. Quinn shrugged off Rachel's confused look and directed her attention to the problem on the board. Reluctantly, Rachel also turned back to the lesson.
The bell rang thirty minutes later and in the chaos of students making their way to third period Rachel pulled Quinn aside.
"Why were you late?"
"No reason." Quinn responded moving away from Rachel.
"Quinn…" Rachel persisted grabbing hold of Quinn harm. Quinn shrugged away from Rachel.
"It was nothing. A couple of people were messing up a locker and I got mad. They sent me to Figgins but he let me go."
"Quinn…" Rachel sighed.
"It wasn't a big deal, Rach."
"I appreciate you coming to my rescue. That was very chivalrous of you." She kissed her softly.
"Mmm… we should go to class." Quinn murmured pulling out of the kiss.
"You're right." Rachel responded and with that grabbed Quinn's hand and pulled her girlfriend down the hallway quickly in order to make it to third period.
At lunch Rachel found herself seated next to Quinn as Mike and Matt got their lunches. While she knew she wouldn't be able to count on this kind of celebrity treatment forever, it was nice to have friends that were going above and beyond to take care of her.
The entire glee club, including the cheerios and football players, were all sitting off to the corner at a circle top table. It was complete mayhem with about six different conversations going on. Quinn was the sole silent glee clubber, content to observe her friends as she sat in between a fierce debate between Rachel and Mercedes.
As the day wore on, Rachel continued to be accompanied to each of her classes. The end of the day brought a successful glee rehearsal in which no one threw up or discovered a hidden blogger in the hallway. To Rachel's delight, Mr. Schuester asked her to try out the duet she had missed out on before.
While Rachel ran the song over and over with Finn, the rest of the club sat and chatted (not an unusual occurrence). Instintively, Quinn pulled out a book and leave through it to find her book mark. However, before she could get too engrossed in her book she felt too farmiliar faces looking down at her.
"Yes?" She asked with a smirk and a signature eye raise.
"Hi Quinn!" Brittany exclaimed, her gold ponytail bouncing with excitement.
"Hi B." She replied and attempted to go back to her book. But when the two hovering figures remained, she once again looked up. "Can I do something for either of you?" Quinn had gotten pretty used to the whole 'Quinn's an outcast at school and we can't talked to her' thing that Santana was operating under.
"We just wanted to talk." Brittany answered, seating herself down next to Quinn. With a mock sigh, Santana sat next to Brittany. Sliding her bookmark back into place, Quinn turned to face her friends. She asked her next question to Santana directly.
"So now that I'm not pregnant, you can talk to me at school? Because you do know that I'm still gay and a teen mom right?" It was meant to come out as a joke but Quinn realized too late that it was bit more spiteful than she meant. Santana, however, got it.
"Pretty much. I mean at least you stopped super-sizing." Quinn had to bite her lip to stop from laughing.
"You're a bitch." Santana shrugged.
"What can I say?"
Rachel was happy to see her girlfriend talking to her friends again. While Santana could hardly be called her favorite person in the world, the girl was definitely growing on her. Especially after all she had done for her that day. As for Brittany, it was pretty much impossible not to love Brittany.
As Finn complained that he was tired, it took all Rachel had not to snap back at him that he didn't know real tired until he was pregnant and the parent to an infant that woke up four times a night, but instead she suggested they take five and went back to join her girlfriend.
"Hey Rach. Sounds great." Quinn said as Rachel made her way over to them and perched at the floor by Quinn's feet.
"Please, you're not even listening." She teased as she touched up her ponytail. "But it's nice to see you conversing with your friends." Santana rolled her eyes.
As the rehearsal came to end, Rachel pulled Quinn away from the group.
"I have a proposition to make." She announced quietly.
"Hmm?"
"You can say no. I promise. But I was wondering if you might want to invite Brittany and Santana to stay the night at my place?" Quinn raised her eyebrow.
"You want Brittany and Santana to spend the night at your house?" She clarified incredulously.
"We don't have to invite them if you don't want to but I thought it might be fun. I mean I would like to get to know them as they are clearly very important and permanent fixtures in your life."
"Oh. I mean okay. Sure. Yeah that could be funny." Rachel grinned a big Rachel Berry grin and pecked Quinn right on the nose.
Twenty minutes later, after some grumbling from Santana and a puppy dog face from Brittany, all four girls were sitting in Rachel's daddy's car. At the sound of the third Wicked song of the car ride, Santana began to groan.
"Berry, don't you have any half decent songs on your phone?" She snapped from the back seat where she was sitting with Brittany.
"I'll have you know that the lyrics, music, and voices that make up the Wicked album are…"
"Yeah, yeah we get it Manhands. Can someone please turn on the radio."
"Be nice, San." Brittany chided gently. Santana slumped back.
"Yes, Santana please be nice." Rachel echoed, chuckling a bit.
"You too missy." Quinn chastised with an eye roll to Brittany's direction.
Upon entering the Berry house, Santana literally had to blink to make sure she wasn't imagining the scene before her. Every inch of the cozy home was exactly how she pictured it. Hanging on every wall, side by side, lining every square inch of space it seemed, were pictures of Rachel. Little Rachel riding her bike, Baby Rachel taking her first bath, all the way up to Teenage Rachel after championships. One particular picture caught her eye. It was of the second grade play, Wizard of Oz. Rachel, of course, was Dorothy. She had matching pigtail braids on either side of her head and she had a blue dress on that looked like it had been made especially for the occasion. She remembered pushing Rachel into the mud just later that day and ruining the dress. Looking closer, Santana recognized her self in the background next to Brittany and Quinn, who had been Glinda the good witch. Santana was fairly certain she had been the Wicked Witch of the West. Brittany had been an oopma loompa. She remembered the outfit Brittany was wearing and how Brittany had begged Santana to do her hair.
"What are you looking at?" Quinn asked, approaching Santana.
"Nothing. Just this old picture." She replied.
"She was cute, huh?" Santana raised her eyebrows.
"God, Fabray, Berry has you fucking whipped." Santana said in mock disgust.
"Please Santana, we both know you were looking at tiny little B." Santana blushed and was (for the first time) relived to see Rachel walking up to them with Brittany.
"Ladies, I don't know about you all but I am looking forward to a somewhat low key night, so I propose Quinn goes and feeds Beth while the rest of us pick out a movie. My dads will order food when they get home." Rachel proposed as she snaked her arm around Quinn's waist.
The others agreed quickly and Leroy Berry entered his home to see a scene he had always dreamed of and never thought would happen: his baby girl with friends over, sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and smiles on their faces.
"Hello girls."
"Hi Daddy." Rachel said getting up. Santana and Brittany followed suit. "Daddy, this is Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce." Unlike Brittany, Santana didn't miss Leroy's lips twitching to a frown for just a second as he realized who they were. Santana shook his hand and so did Brittany.
"It's nice to meet you." He said with his friendly voice.
"You too." Santana replied
"Can I get either of you girls anything?" They both shook their heads.
"Alrighty-then. Well holler if you need anything. I'm going to go uncover your father from all that paperwork in his office." And with a wink he left.
Brittany squealed when Quinn descended the stairs with little Beth in her arms.
"Bethie!" Quinn raised a finger to her lip and handed the baby to Rachel.
"Britt, she's a baby you can't be too loud." Santana explained with a soft smile to Brittany. Brittany nodded as Rachel cooed to Beth.
"Hi baby! Did you miss us." Beth gurgled a bit and all four of them laughed a bit. "Brittany would you like to hold her?" Brittany's eyes got big and looked to Santana who nodded. Brittany nodded a huge smile blooming on her face. "Alright Brittany. You need to make sure to hold her head okay?" Brittany nodded once again.
As Santana watched her niece cuddle into Brittany she couldn't help but think that a friendship with Rachel Berry couldn't be all bad.