First let me apologize profusely for not updating last week. My only excuse is that things like work and the holidays kept me busy and so I didn't get to work on the story all that much. I do my best to update weekly but I unfortunately won't always be able to.
s
Quinn was extremely nervous, though she was doing her best to hide it, it had been one week since the article telling everyone what had happened to her had been published and it was finally Monday and she was going to be going back to school for the first time since everything had gone down. She was sitting in the Berry's kitchen, just having finished showering after completing her modified workout. She had finally gone to see the OB/GYN this past week and even though she was still able to do her more intense workouts it was recommended that she slow things down and begin to modify them now so that she would be used to it by the time she was unable to do her standard routine.
Another thing that had been no fun that was starting to occur was morning sickness. Although why it was called morning sickness was beyond her because the nausea seemed to strike whenever it damn well pleased and at the most inconvenient times. On the plus side the swelling in her face had gone down and even though it hurt and she had to be careful, her cheekbone was healing up nicely, so that was a plus.
Quinn's big hope this morning was that because she hadn't been around when the story broke and because a week had passed since then that any interest it had would have died down a bit. She wasn't so naïve as to think that there wouldn't be a few problems but hopefully the worst of it had died down. Of course there was the possibility that because she had been gone things could have been blown way out of proportion and she was about to walk into a hornets nest, but nothing Santana, Brittany, or Rachel had said to her about school indicated that this would be the case.
Still it was better to plan for the worst and hope for the best. She decided to forgo wearing her cheerios uniform, while she had tried to contact Coach Sylvester over the course of the week she had been unsuccessful in her attempts to get a hold of the woman. She would bring it just in case for some strange reason the universe would decide to smile on her and she would be allowed to keep her spot, but the lack of communication from the other woman was very telling. She was doing her best to not show just how hard this was for her, doing her best to weather this storm with dignity and grace, but she was losing everything and it was killing her inside. Still she knew that Santana, Brittany, and Rachel worried about her enough as it was so she forced the smile onto her face and carried on.
She knew that she had promised to let them in more, to try harder to accept the help that she needed, but there was nothing about this that they could help with. They couldn't stop the gossiping that was going to follow her everywhere. They couldn't stop the smug looks as people who resented her past successes found joy in her fall.
She smiles and waves silently as LeRoy entered the kitchen. The Berry family, Rachel and both of her parents, had been a Godsend through all of this time. She had only been here a week, and while it still wasn't quite home, it was certainly a more comfortable place to be than with her parents. As for them, she hadn't seen nor heard from them since that night, according to Maribel they were scheduled for a hearing this week to even see if there was going to be a trial, there would be, but luckily for her so far she remained unneeded. Quinn wasn't sure how well she would handle facing them right now.
"Hey Quinn, excited about getting back to school?" LeRoy asks as he pours himself some coffee.
"Not really, it's kind of feels like I'm getting ready to walk into the lion's den, and when you used to be a lion you know just how…. Well I'm trying to do better, but some of them aren't…"
Hiram rests a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Hold your head up, you are Quinn Fabray and you young lady are one of the strongest people that I have ever met, take comfort in your friends and if things get rough you let us know."
"Oh don't worry about that Daddy, we've got Quinn covered." Rachel says smiling as she steps into the kitchen, kissing both of her fathers on the cheeks before taking a seat next to Quinn. "I must say that while I have seen Santana in action before I have never seen her this fierce before, I think between her and Brittany, who I didn't think was even capable of being so… in charge, I'm actually a little terrified of them right now and we're friends, that you will be just fine. Plus I'm here for you as well and so is the rest of the glee club. We've got your back Quinn."
Quinn smiles at Rachel, "Thanks." Quinn says softly feeling a little bit better.
s
xXx-Scene Break-xXx
s
Okay so things hadn't been too bad so far. She had expected the stares but between being flanked by Santana and Brittany and going straight to her classes and focusing on other things it hadn't been too bad. She sat at a lunch table with Santana, Brittany, and Rachel quietly picking at a little tomato in her salad as she listened to Rachel and Santana argue back and forth. It was actually pretty amusing to listen to the two of them. There was no bite in their remarks and Rachel was proving to be just as much of a match for Santana as anyone Quinn had ever met.
Her attention is pulled away from her two friends when she feels a tap on her shoulder and as she turns around to look she see who it was she feels someone slide into the seat next to her on the other side and when she turns to look, there sitting next to her with a big grin on his face popping one of her cherry tomatoes into his mouth is Finn.
"You do know it's dangerous to steal food from a pregnant woman right?" She asks arching an eyebrow a smile on her face as well. Seeing Finn here smiling at her, being playful was a good sign that he was doing okay. However what was a worrying sign that he was not doing okay was the big black eye that he was sporting. "And what happened to your eye?"
"Oh my gosh! Finn are you okay!?" Rachel gasps horrified.
"Yeah Finnep… Hudson what's with the eye?" Santana amends her nickname. Looking at her friend, Quinn can see that the only reason she is tolerating the boys presence is for her and so Quinn smiles at her gratefully.
"Oh this, it's nothing." Finn shrugs it off as no big deal, avoiding answering the question. "How are you Quinn, you doing okay?"
"I'm fine," Quinn can feel the big grin on her face spreading and she doesn't care. After their last encounter she hadn't heard from him and had been worried that despite his words things were not okay between them, but now that he was here she felt relieved, "nothing majors happened yet, but you know, the days still young."
Finn frowns, "If anyone gives you trouble you let me know and I'll handle it."
Santana can't help but sneer at that. "Oh, you'll handle it will you?"
"Yeah, I will." Is his defensive response, Finn and Santana had never gotten along but ever since Finn and she had had their… issues, Santana had really stepped up her dislike.
"I bet you will, just like-"
"So, seriously what happened to your eye Finn?" Brittany quickly intercedes, gently grasping Santana's hand in her own under the table.
"It… it looks like it hurts… are you sure you're okay?" Rachel says softly, a shy blush on her face. Finn looks at her and suddenly a matching blush is on his face as well.
"Yeah no… it's cool." He says awkwardly and it takes all of Quinn's willpower to not just roll her eyes and throw her hands up in the air. She had come to terms with the fact that the two of them liked each other and would probably be dating sometime in the near future and she had decided to be okay with that. She and Finn had ended on good terms as friends and she was now friends with Rachel as well so she could be okay with it. Still that didn't mean that watching it didn't hurt a little or that she wanted to watch them figure out what they were. She would support them from a distance but that was the best she could manage right now. So in order to break up the moment that they were trying not to have with each other Quinn decides to press the issue.
"Seriously Finn, are you okay, what happened?"
Finn turns his attention off of Rachel and shrugs. "Alright fine, I got into a fight."
"Really?"
"Seriously? You?"
"What?"
"Finn!"
Are the responses of the four girls.
"This I have to hear, spill Frankenteen." Santana tells him.
Finn shrugs his shoulders once again. "Alright, fine. I was sitting alone in my room doing my homework-"
Quinn scoffs playfully.
"Shut up its true," Finn teases back "so there I was in my room, working on my homework minding my own business, when suddenly out of nowhere I was attacked. These crazy ninja warriors just jumped out from the shadows and just started throwing all of these punches and kicks and swinging their swords, all of them trying to take me down, there must have been fifty- no a hundred of them."
All four girls roll their eyes at this.
"Luckily for me, I'm awesome, so I jumped out of their way, dodging and evading my way through their attacks like some kind of Matrix influenced Jackie Chan fighting machine. One swung his sword at my head and I ducked under his blade and punched him in the throat, the next one tried to grapple me so I grabbed him and threw him out the window instead. And then I broke the next ones nose, on and on it went like this, all of them coming after me time and time again, and each time, one by one they fell to my awesomeness, finally after the last one collapsed is exhaustion, I stood up, dusted myself off, not a scratch on me, and I went back to my homework, cause you know, an education is important and you shouldn't let anything interfere with it… or you know, something like that."
"And the black eye?" Quinn asks bemusedly.
"Oh that? I tripped and fell." Finn is grinning widely at the looks of complete disbelief on their faces.
"Seriously, thank you for wasting all of our time like that." Santana says sarcastically.
"You're very welcome." Finn says with a smirk on his face.
"Seriously, what happened, who kicked your ass?"
Finn looks at Santana in annoyance. "Nobody kicked my ass, it was Puck, we fought and other than that it's nobody's business but mine so drop it."
"Fair enough," Santana says softly. "You okay?"
Finn seems shocked by Santana's question but shakes it off and nods his head, the two of them sharing a look of understanding, they aren't friends but maybe being more civil to each other will be possible. They are both worried about Quinn and neither of them are Puck's biggest fans right now, not a friendship between the two of them but definitely a truce. While this is happening both Brittany and Quinn are looking at them in amazement, this right here was the most civil that the two of them had ever been with each other and so Brittany squeezes Santana's hand affectionately while Quinn gently shoulder bumps Finn.
Rachel however watches this all in confusion, realizing that as a new person she is missing something. Some sort of change in the dynamic. "But… I thought you and Noah were best friends?"
"We are." Finn shrugs, not meeting Rachel's gaze. "And as soon as he stops being a complete asshole-"
"Fat chance." Santana growls, a fierce scowl on her face and a matching one on Brittany's.
"Well we can hope." Finn says.
"Yeah, that he gets hit by truck." Santana mutters under her breath too quietly for anyone, besides Brittany who is sitting right next to her, to hear.
"Is he not…" Rachel turns to Quinn apologetically, "I mean we haven't seen him around, I mean he shows up to glee club but he hasn't been by our house, I thought maybe he was talking with you though, is Noah not taking any responsibility?"
"No." Quinn says shortly, eager to move the subject away from Puck and onto something else, anything else. "And I don't care, can we please change the subject." Quinn says this as a statement rather than a question, not leaving any room for an argument.
"Sure Quinn." Brittany says kindly. The rest of the lunch period is spent in light conversation, it was Quinn's first day back and so there was no need to do any heavy conversing. Well it was light for some of them, Finn and Rachel spent the rest of the lunch break being painfully awkward around one another and it was actually bad enough that Quinn was thinking of asking Santana or Brittany to play cupid or run interference, because she would not put up with this for much longer.
It was when the bell rang and the group was heading to their next class that things took a wrong turn.
"Yo, Fabray! Hey slut!"
Quinn turns to glare at the person who had called out to her when her entire face is consumed in an icy explosion of pain. It was as if she had just been hit by her father all over again only this time it was cold as well and so Quinn did the only thing she could think to do, which was to follow her instincts, so she grasps at her face trying to protectively cover her healing injury and falls to her knees screaming in agony. She can sort of feel a pair of warm arms wrap around her, supporting her, through the chilling, searing, pain, but it feels distant. Her eyes are shut tightly as bright white stars flash across the blackness and she thinks she can hear the sound of people fighting around her, and someone yelling in Spanish, but all of her concentration is on how badly this hurts. How much it would hurt even without the healing cheekbone and how much worse it was with it.
s
xXx-Scene Break-xXx
s
Quinn sat in her bed quietly, her forehead resting on her knees. She had been basically rushed to the nurse's office by the teachers when they had arrived and from there she was taken to the hospital to have her face checked out. Luckily it wouldn't set her recovery back; however she would probably be in a bit of pain for the next day or two. It had all passed in kind of blur, both Brittany and Rachel had accompanied her, however Quinn wasn't in the mood for company and so had remained silent for the most part.
It was nine o'clock now and Brittany and Rachel had only left her a few minutes ago. Today had been going great; she should have known that it was too good to be true. Was this what it was going to be like for her, I mean she was injured for God's sake and that still hadn't stopped them from throwing an ice cold slushy in her face. Was this it; was this going to be her life, nervously looking over her shoulder, sneaking through the hallway to avoid a repeat of today? It had really hit her that this was how she must have made others feel and she couldn't help but think that she deserved this. All of this. Like this was some kind of cosmic justice for her being such a bitch. From what her parents had done to her, both before and after learning she was pregnant, the rape, she could call it that, even if only deep in the hidden recesses of her mind, the slushy today and probably the hundreds upon hundreds more she would undoubtedly experience in the future. Maybe she deserved all of it.
She wasn't okay right now and she couldn't even pretend that she was anymore. LeRoy and Hiram had both been a nervous mess around her and while she appreciated the concern all she wanted right now was to just be left alone so she had staved off dinner and had sat in an uncomfortable silence in her room with Brittany and Rachel until finally she told them that she would like to be alone and so they had reluctantly left her.
"Hey Querida."
Quinn looks up startled to see Santana walking in with a huge grin on her face. "How you feeling?"
"I'm Oka… I… I don't… not so good." Quinn finishes lamely as Santana takes a spot next to Quinn on the bed. When Quinn looks at her, Santana can't believe how tired she looks, how completely and totally exhausted she looks.
"Of course you're not okay, those jackasses Azimio and Karofsky threw a slushy at your face, don't worry though, Finntastic and I took care of it." Santana says a smug grin on her face.
"Finntastic? Really, since when is he anything but Finnept or, or Finnocence or even Frankenteen to you and what do you mean you guys took care of it?"
"Oh that well…" Santana scratches her head in embarrassment before shaking it off and regaining her cocky composure. "Finn and I kicked their asses, like it was a complete beat down, well more from me than him, but I'll tell you something, I underestimated him, Finn was a machine, he would take two or three hits just to deliver one and they looked like they hurt."
"Santana! What… what happened?"
Santana was stunned when she saw the cherry red slushy fly at Quinn's face; it completely and totally shocked her that someone would be so stupid as to throw a slushy at Quinn. She is is brought out of her shock when she sees Quinn collapse to her knees, clutching her face and screaming in agony. A quick glace to her right and she sees that Finn hadn't hesitated he just jumped forward and it looked like he broke Azimio's nose with his first swing.
She sees Karofsky moving to attack Finn from behind as he is getting beat on, and fighting back against a bleeding Azimio. And with Quinn's agony filled cries filling her ears Santana snapped. Everything that her friend had gone through, all of the shit that she had to deal with, every time she had been hurt and Santana had failed to protect her, all of it came rushing in and she just snapped. She charged Karofsky and did exactly what she did to Puck that day and kicked him as hard as she could and as he was doubled over in agony she jumped on him and began to hit and scratch him, doing her absolute best to do as much damage as she possibly could.
All of her anger and frustration at what Quinn was going through coming to bear on the boy she was assaulting. He took a couple of half assed swings at her trying to get her to stop, but they didn't have much force behind them as he was too busy trying to protect his face as Santana clawed at him. But Santana was too far gone to care about anything other than hurting this person, she was no longer seeing just David Karofsky, but Russell Fabray, and Judy Fabray, and Noah Puckerman as well, and so she kept clawing and scratching and hitting and even after she felt herself get pulled off and away she kept trying to break free and hurt them even more.
It seemed like nothing would calm her down until she heard Quinn's pain filled whimper as Brittany and a teacher helped her to her feat. Rachel standing nearby her hands being held together in front of her anxiously. And the desire, the need, to go to Quinn overpowered her rage and she tried to take a step towards her friend, to follow after her as they left, but someone was holding her in place, a glance behind her and she saw it was a shaken looking Mr. Schuster.
"Come on," He says quietly. "Let's get you four to the Principals office."
She looks around and sees the large crowd that had gathered and were watching her in fear. Good, she thinks angrily, now they know what will happen if they ever messed with her Quinn again. She looks over and sees a whimpering Karofsky, who looks like he had just lost a fight with a lawn mower. Azimo's nose was still bleeding and his lip had been busted open and he had a definite limp in his step. And as for Finn, he was looking both much worse for the wear and also a little proud. Azimio was quite a bit bigger than him and it looked like that despite taking a beating Finn had put up quite a fight.
Finn had stepped up and when Quinn had been hurt he had fought for her, fought for her Quinn and she couldn't help but look at him in a new light. Finn catches her gaze and he nods to her in an almost imperceptive manner and she returns it. He had put himself on the line for one of her girls and for her that was it, the flip had been switched and she knew that no matter how much he may drive her up the wall at times, no matter how dense he could be at times, she now considered him her friend and the small smile that tugged at his bleeding lip showed her that he felt the same.
"Are you okay, you're not hurt are you!?" Quinn has sat up and is now checking Santana over for injuries, terrified that her friend had been injured.
"I'm fine Q, and so is Finn. They barely touched me and Finn's a tough guy." Santana takes Quinn's hands in her own to calm her down and then leans back down and pulls Quinn down with her. Santana knew her friend was feeling anxious, feeling guilty, and today had been hard enough for her already even without the whole slushy incident, so she was going to drop all tough pretenses and cuddle with her friend. Brittany and Rachel had both been scared for Quinn but didn't know how to help her, but Santana knew that her friend just needed a safe place where she could be weak and wounded without worrying about someone judging her. And no matter what happened, no matter the situation, Santana could only ever view Quinn as the strongest person she knew.
"What happened after that?" Quinn asks softly, her heart hammering in her chest as Santana held her. This wasn't the first time they had cuddled, they didn't do it often but it did happen, and for Quinn it was always the most relaxed she would ever be and also very stressful. Laying there with Santana she felt warm and protected as Santana gently stroked her hair, but she was also hyper aware of herself as she lay there. Hyper aware of her hands and the way that their bodies molded together, of Santana's soft curves pressed against her, causing her to be unable to fully relax.
"Well they were going to expel me and Finn-"
"What!? No they can't!" Quinn tries to sit up but Santana holds her there firmly.
"Calm your tits, we weren't expelled, my mom showed up and their parents showed up and hashed it out with Figgins and basically my mom put the beat down on everyone, kicked my ass too for fighting, grounded for the next two weeks, anyways Finn and I, as well as those two bitches are all suspended for the next two weeks as well. And luckily nobody is pressing any charges, it was agreed that it was an intense situation that got out of hand."
"San… I am so so sorry, I… this is my fault… I-" Quinn stammers trying to explain that it was her fault, that she had deserved every bad thing that was happening to her and that if she hadn't been such a bitch then maybe Santana wouldn't have been sucked into her whole mess that she calls life.
"You what?" Santana interrupts, knowing what Quinn was trying to say and not having any of it for even a moment. "Did you order Azimio and Karofsky to throw a slushy at your still broken and healing face, did you ask Jew-fro to spread your story around the entire school, did you ask to be raped and then have your parents kick you out?" Santana ignores the flinch at the mention of the rape and continues. "Exactly which of those things did you cause that requires you to apologize to me?"
Santana kisses the top of Quinn's head. "You're my Quinn, mine, and I will always fight for you and I will always protect you. You don't ever have to apologize to me. I love you, it's that simple. Really the biggest downside for me is that I have to attend this lame ass anger management class thing with Ms. Pillsbury."
"San…" Quinn whimpers, grasping at her friend desperately as she starts to cry.
Santana continues to gently stroke Quinn's hair as she lets her friend cry until her tears run out and then continues on doing that even after that, content to lay there in the silence with her friend.
"I thought you said you were grounded, what are you doing here?" Quinn asks quietly after a while, both girls are beginning to nod off.
"You needed me, I snuck out."
S
So once again I apologize for not updating last week. Things got hectic and even though the holidays are over, it doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. I will do my very best to continue to update every Friday, but unfortunately I won't always be able to. So with that being said I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the next one should be up next Friday.