5.
It was dark and the air was misty when Quinn finally arrived on the Berry's doorstep, her stomach all in knots. For half a second, she thought about turning back, but then she berated herself for even thinking it. Rachel needed to know as soon as possible that Quinn was on her side, and that required swallowing the enormous terror she was currently drowning in, and knocking on that door.
She raised her hand to knock and then took a half step back, waiting.
The door swung open a moment later and there was Rachel Berry. Her eyes were dark and tired, red-rimmed from crying, and a tad bloodshot, and they regarded Quinn for a moment, as if trying to process the situation. Quinn knew she had when her gaze hardened and the Berry's front door was suddenly slammed in her face.
After standing shocked and still for a moment, Quinn began pounding desperately on the on door again. "Rachel! Rachel, please! Open the door, I need to explain!" She waited, holding her breath and holding out hope that the door would crack open, even a little bit. "Rach, please," she said in a quieter voice. Another moment of waiting passed before Quinn felt more frustrated than even. "Dammit, Rachel, there's something I need to tell you, something you should know so just—"
The door finally swung open to reveal the upset and disappointed countenance of Leroy Berry. His face was stern, but not unkind and held no traces of anger or hate. Actually, he looked like he was about to ground her.
"Quinn," he murmured in a rough, distraught tone of voice.
"Leroy," she returned pleadingly, willing him to see her the way he had always seen her before. "Please, I need to talk to Rachel."
The older man looked down at her with a grave expression and said, "Your nose is swollen." Quinn gave him a confused look and he cupped her chin and turned her head from side to side. "Dislocated. Hiram can reset that for you, if you'd like." He stood aside and allowed her to enter the Berry home.
Quinn stepped over the threshold, and suddenly everything felt a little better. The house was warm and welcoming, so different from the house she had grown up in, and the entire interior smelled of Rachel's unique scent: roses, mint, and just a hint of something fruity. Quinn loved the Berry home, almost as much as she loved its inhabitants.
She and Leroy made their way through the entryway, the living room, and to the back of the house where the kitchen was. Hiram was sitting down at the table, reading a Consumer Reports magazine and tapping his foot.
"Does your mother know you're here?" Leroy asked her, not unkindly. Hiram looked up at her with that same look of fatherly concern and admonishment.
Uh-oh, Quinn thought, remembering that she had a parent who worried now. She cleared her throat and answered, "No, sir, she doesn't. With everything that's happened. . . I just forgot." Quinn couldn't meet the Berry men's gazes, so she looked down to the tiled floor.
"Quinn," Hiram called her to attention. She looked up at him hesitantly and he looked back at her and continued, "You have a dislocated nose. Rachel didn't do that, did she?"
Quinn nearly laughed, because the thought of Rachel Berry physically harming anyone was such a completely ludicrous concept, and her fathers of all people should have known that. She smiled and shook her head. "No, of course not," she replied, her voice half-offended on Rachel's behalf and partly amused that Hiram would assume this. "The cut and the nose are from the back of Azimio Adams's hand. The broken fingers are from me. . . um, returning the favor." Admitting to punching someone was never an easy thing, especially in a house of pacifists, but Quinn held her gaze with the two men, "How's Rachel's nose and mouth?"
Hiram looked from his husband, who turned toward the phone, and back to Quinn, his gaze softening slightly. He stood up and walked closer to where Quinn stood. "Nothing is broken. She had a nosebleed for quite awhile and her lip is obviously cut and a bit swollen," the doctor explain, while examining Quinn's own crooked nose. "You, on the other hand," he paused, pinched her nose a bit, and firmly set it back in place, "look like you could use a cup of tea and a hot shower."
The pain of having her nose reset made Quinn's eyes water, but she barely whimpered as the sharp, searing pain slowly began to ebb away. Her tolerance for pain had been amazing since giving birth to Beth. That had been painful.
"I didn't set her up, sir," Quinn told him point-blank. "I wouldn't. She's become my best friend. I need to talk to Rachel," Quinn argued, wiping the water from her eyes. She looked earnestly at Leroy Berry. "Please, I hate it when she hates me. It's killing me."
Leroy nodded and gestured with his head to the staircase. "She's in her room. Be careful, she's a fury when she's truly mad."
"Thank you," Quinn told him, hugging him briefly before turning to the staircase, climbing the thirteen steps, and ending up in front of Rachel's bedroom door.
Through the tiny crack between the bottom of the door and the carpeted floor, Quinn could hear Rachel's playlist that she usually listened to when she was angry and dancing off steam. Again, the blonde steeled herself and brought her uninjured fist up to knock loudly on the door.
Abruptly, the music was cut off and Rachel's reply of, "Please, leave me alone," could be heard through the door.
Before Rachel could turn the music back up, Quinn took a deep breath and called back, "I can't."
The sound of the blonde's voice must have caught Rachel off-guard, because for a moment, everything was still. Then the door opened and an angry Rachel was glaring at her as if she could make Quinn disappear by sheer force of will alone. If looks could kill, I would be so dead right now. The door began to close, but this time Quinn had been anticipating it, and she caught it with her uninjured hand. Rachel stared at her incredulously.
"You stormed off earlier, and I let you because I was too shocked and upset to stop you," Quinn began with slow, deliberate words. She pushed the door open a little more and took a half-step forward. "But I'm not letting you shut me out this time, Rachel." Her gold-green eyes gazed into Rachel's imploringly. "You really have no idea how much you mean to me, do you?"
Rachel crossed her arms defiantly, but let go of the door and took a step back to let Quinn enter. "If I meant so much to, then why did you get close to me only to torment me further?" the brunette demanded, eyes flicking between Quinn and the floor.
"Not 'meant', Rachel, you 'mean' so much to me. Present tense," Quinn corrected her. "And I didn't. I had no clue until Santana overheard a younger Cheerio talking about it, and came and told me."
Rachel shook her head, obviously fighting not to believe Quinn. "You admitted it," she argued, looking purposefully at the wood floor. "You confessed that you were trying to get to me, that you were only my friend to gain my trust so that you could hurt me."
Quinn took two hurried steps forward, until Rachel backed away and Quinn stilled in disappointment. "Rachel, when I told you that I was trying to get to you, I didn't mean emotionally. After Santana and Brittany came barging into my shower to tell me what was going on, I was physically racing to get to you before Cassie and her bitch-brigade did; to make sure nothing happened to you.
"And then I made that, admittedly stupid, sarcastic remark to Azimio. I was angry at him and at Cassie, and, you know me; when I get angry, I get sarcastic, and I don't mean the things I say." Quinn chanced another step forward and, when Rachel didn't back away this time, she stretched her hand out and waited for Rachel to take it. "I could never hurt you like that. Even when I thought I hated you, I never sank that low. I did a lot of really terrible things to you, Rachel, and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it right with you; but you're. . . you, and I could never do something like that to you."
There was a teariness to Rachel's voice when she spoke, still not looking at Quinn. "Yeah, I'm me. The hideous 'queen of the freaks' with more confidence than actual talent, who talks too much for someone that no one wants to listen to—"
"Shut up," Quinn snapped, "don't you ever talk about yourself that way, Rachel Berry, or so help me God. . ." Putting her hands at the back of her head and taking calming breaths, Quinn could feel Rachel's eyes on her before she turned back around to face the brunette. "It took me a long time the figure something out, almost too long."
"And what was that?" Rachel demanded begrudgingly.
There was a tender admiration in Quinn's eyes as she stared back at her best friend. "You," the blonde answered simply. "I spent so long absorbed in myself and my image and popularity, all the things I thought I wanted, that I almost didn't see what really mattered, the thing that I needed most– someone like you."
Quinn finally took Rachel's hand and Rachel didn't pull away. In all honesty, Quinn was pretty sure that the brunette was too stunned to move. As long as Rachel was listening, though, that was fine by Quinn.
"You. . . Rachel, you believed in me, believed that I could make it out of Lima and be someone. You're always pushing me to do the right thing. You cared about me even when I treated you like nothing. You understand me better than I understand me most of the time." Quinn's speech was rewarded with a tiny, reluctant smile from Rachel, and she held onto that, like a drowning man would hold onto a life preserver.
She reached out her other hand, momentarily forgetting that it was in a brace, and pushed some hair from Rachel's tired face. The brunette's warm skin felt even better when the girl leaned into Quinn's touch and closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"And, about what Cassie and Azimio said," Quinn released a bitter scoff, as her eyes watched Rachel's now peaceful countenance. "I love listening to you talk, I always listen. Yeah, you ramble on sometimes, but it's actually kind of endearing. You have a lot of really interesting things to say."
The blonde smiled as Rachel's eyes opened to look at her as she spoke. "Rachel," Quinn chuckled, "there's nobody else like you. You're energetic and bubbly and straight-forward and a little weird sometimes, but that's what makes you who you are. And this confidence that you have? This pride and self-assuredness you hold in your talent? People are jealous of it; I would know, I used to be jealous of it too. You know how incredible you are and you go after that, Rach. Most people only wish that they could have what you have."
Rachel blinked slowly a few times, staring at Quinn with wide-eyes. "I don't always feel that way, though," she replied in a soft monotone.
"Maybe not," Quinn shrugged, "but there's a difference between what you know and what you feel. You know you're amazing, even if you don't feel like it sometimes." She pulled one leg onto Rachel's bed and tucked it under the knee that still dangled off the edge. Her eyes focused on the duvet as she added, "I never should have tried to make you believe you were anything less than the amazing person you are."
They passed in a moment of silence, and then a shrieking gasp suddenly pierced the air in the room.
Quinn looked up in alarm. "What?" she asked in panic. She took Rachel's horrified face in both of her hands. "What, Rachel? What's wrong?"
Rachel brought one of Quinn's hands down from her face. And cradled it between her own hands— the injured one. She looked between the blonde's guilty face and the broken hand several times, and it would have been comical to both of them had they been watching from the outside.
"Oh my Barbra," Rachel breathed in a terrified tone that matched her face. "What the hell did they do to you?"
Panicked, Quinn tried to play it off by teasing, "Did Rachel Berry just swear out loud?" The blonde shifted uncomfortably under Rachel's scrutiny.
"Quinn," Rachel coaxed more calmly, "what happened to your hand? I want to know."
As she picked at Rachel's pale pink comforter, Quinn thought about how to answer her friend's question. She scanned Rachel's imploring gaze and, of its own accord, her uninjured hand rose to skim her fingers across the dark bruises covering Rachel's cheek and nose and she softly ran her thumb over Rachel's split lip. Anger reared its ugly head inside of Quinn yet again; she was going to get Azimio and Cassie back for hurting her best friend, after she was done berating Puck for taking the bait and inadvertently injuring Rachel.
"It's nothing, Rach," Quinn assured her, pushing dark tresses from Rachel's shoulders. "Nothing compared to what they did to you. What I have done to you in the past."
"I think karma has more than paid you back, Q," the brunette replied, laughing breathily. Her face became more somber. "But you made it through." Rachel looked down incredulously, "I can't believe I doubted you so quickly. Quinn, I'm so sorry."
Quinn shook her head and leaned forward to hug Rachel tightly. "Don't be. It's like Brittany said to me, I've given you so many reasons to believe that I would do that to you," Quinn replied. "But I'm never going to hurt you again, at least not intentionally." She drew back and lightly tapped Rachel's nose, causing the other girl to wince and then grin. "Seeing you smile is so much better than watching you cry."
Rachel slumped forward, allowing her head to rest on the leg that Quinn had pulled up onto the bed. They were silent; Quinn combed her fingers through Rachel's hair as the brunette thought. It wasn't until Rachel began shaking and Quinn felt a dampness of her jeans against her leg, that the serenity was shattered.
"What's wrong?" Quinn asked quietly.
"I broke up with Finn," Rachel whispered tearily, wiping her cheeks.
Quinn sighed and pulled Rachel up and wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulders, tucking the brunette's head under her chin. "Okay," the blonde whispered gently to her, at a loss for any other words.
"Where am I going to find another person to love me like he did?" the smaller girl sobbed. Rachel gripped the material of Quinn's shirt where it clung to her shoulder. "I don't want to be alone, Quinn."
"I'll never let you be alone, Rachel," Quinn told her sincerely. "I promise."
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