AN: The end of this chapter actually works as a companion piece to a one-shot that I did between Quinn and Rachel. It does not HAVE to be read to understand whats going on but it certainly doesn't hurt. .net/s/6064354/1/One_of_Us

"I thought about spending the night at Santana's and swiping one of hers, I think she has them in bulk under her sink, but I couldn't guarantee she wouldn't notice one missing and I certainly wasn't going to ask her for one. So I decided I needed to just go buy one. I couldn't go anywhere local and me and my mom go shopping and spend enough money in all the surrounding cities enough that I would even be recognized there."

"Must suck to be so popular, recognizable, loaded, well dressed-," Mercedes smirked.

"It does have its drawbacks," Quinn said dramatically brushing her hair behind her shoulder. "Anyway, we had only been to St. Mary's a couple of times and I was still looking for a dress for the Chastity Ball (oh the irony). There are a few nice boutiques there so I told my mom that I was going to go there that Saturday. My mom had already made plans with two of her high-class friends that nothing short of the Lord coming back would keep her from, so I knew she wouldn't try to go with me. So, I went there by myself and I really did go looking for a dress, I just made a little pit stop into a pharmacy. I bought four different ones just to be sure and used a bathroom in an old antique store while I was looking for something for my mom for her birthday."

"It's astounding how you do all this other stuff hiding what you're really doing there."

"I really was there to do all that other stuff, sort of" Quinn said, unconvincingly. "Like I said, my family's default mode is denial. I hoped that if I went on pretending everything was okay and normal that it would be and that I was, I don't know, puking every morning because of stress or something. So, I took the tests, the vote was unanimous, and the hour drive home was longest hour of my life."

"I didn't tell anyone. I couldn't. Especially not my parents. I couldn't tell Puck, I didn't want to; I didn't want him to know. I didn't think it would do any good anyway. I had no idea that he would actually be the better choice over Finn, that he would be the one who would step up the most. I didn't even want to tell Finn, things were going so great between us. But then Mr. Schue gave Tina a solo that Rachel, of course, wanted and she stormed off so Finn was all mopey about her and bringing her up in conversation and I felt him slipping away again. So instead of just letting him go and let the truth play out I decided to use the hot tub incident to convince him he was the father."

"He told Mr. Schue, which I wasn't crazy about but thank God he knew enough to help and support us as much as he could without telling out parents. He told Puck too, which other than my parents was the last person I wanted to find out. He cornered me, told me he would take care of me and the baby. He sounded like he wanted to help, like it wasn't a burden or inconvenience at all. He just accepted right off the bat that we'd made this bed and now we had to lie in it. He didn't say any of this in a particularly nice way, though. He was angry that I hadn't told him and had instead told Finn that it was his. I should have taken his offer, though. It would have saved me a lot of, well a lot of a lot of things. Aggravation, stress, heartache… but like I said, I had no idea he'd end up being the bigger man. He was no more faithful to me than Finn was but he is devoted to this baby. I was just thinking of when my parents found out, I knew I couldn't hide it from them forever, and I thought the reaction would be less severe if I revealed the father as being a nice, clean-cut, all American boy versus Puck who is….not.

"Puck came up to me and Finn later, playing it all coy, saying he'd been getting sick in the mornings a lot, just trying to cause dissention between me and Finn. I knew he was mad and I guess he had a right to be, but then he did something I never thought he'd do. He said "Are you putting on a little weight? You should watch your carbs or they won't be able to lift you to the top of the pyramid anymore." I know Finn thought he was just making another comment about be being pregnant, but he wasn't."

Tell me one more time…

You're not fat.

"He hit me where he knew it would hurt the most. He knew about my body issues, the struggle it had been," Quinn's voice cracked, "and he said that to deliberately hurt me. Finn told him to back off and he did, he walked away. I used that to solidify in my mind that Finn was the right choice and that this could make everything better. But I never should have saddled Finn with any of this, it didn't make anything better, it just made it worse.

"Finn is a nice guy, but he's just really….simple-minded and it just really started getting on my nerves. He never took any initiative, like his words said that he loved and cared about me and this baby but his actions didn't show it. I guess he just thought since we weren't going to keep it he didn't need to alter his life too much. Rachel finally had to get him a job to help with the bills because he couldn't seem to get one under his own power, whereas Puck already had a job and tried a few times to give me money, but I was still bound and determined to drag Finn down with me. And I know it was wrong of me to force him to get a job for a kid who wasn't even his, wrong of me to lie in the first place but... I don't know what I'm trying to say other than what I've said ten times before: I thought he was the better choice.

"But his dopiness that I used to find kinda cute is no longer as endearing a trait in the guy you have chosen to be the father of your child and I started kinda treating him like crap. I was calling him out on stuff more and insulting him, trying to make him who I thought he should be. I really pushed him to her, I guess," she trailed off, knowing Mercedes knew who 'her' was.

"And then it started making me even angrier at myself that I had taken this great guy who really liked me and…did to him what everyone had done to me my whole life. I pointed out his faults, the things that I thought he should try to do better at, even before I got pregnant I had tried to make him realize the rep that we had and he needed to do this or not do this to fit our image…I tried to make him…live to make me happy…instead of himself…wow," she paused for quite a few moments then.

"But, you know what? Maybe I didn't screw him up as bad as I think I did because lately I don't think he knows what would make him happy. When he was with me he wanted Rachel, when he was with Rachel he wanted to be with-well the whole Cheerios squad basically, I mean I know he went out with Santana and Brittany, then when Rachel started dating Jesse he wanted her back but had sex with Santana…"

"Wait, he what?" Mercedes cut her off.

"Oh, yeah," Quinn stated. "Back when we had Madonna week. Puck told me."

"Santana?" Mercedes asked.

"Yup."

"Doesn't he know where that thing's been? I hope he used protection," Mercedes said, still not believing her ears.

"You and me both," Quinn replied, shaking her head as if trying to dispel the mental image.

"Wait, so is this part of that patient/therapist confidentiality that's not allowed to leave this room?"

"Absolutely."

Mercedes gave a loud exasperated sigh and flopped back on the bed. "Aww, c'mon you can't expect me to keep this to myself," Mercedes whined to the ceiling.

Quinn was silent for a few moments before groaning, "Fine, if you absolutely must tell someone-you didn't hear it from me!" Quinn relented.

"Deal. Speaking of things I'm not allowed to tell people about Finn, how did that whole thing with Santana go with Finn's umm…..problem?" Mercedes asked coyly.

"From what Santana told Puck, it was pretty much over before she realized it happened."

"Hmmm," was all Mercedes could say.

"Anyway, let's move on, we've spent far too much time discussing Finn's…."Quinn's lips began to quirk as she tried not to smile, "short-comings," she finished and both girls began snickering loudly at the double entendre. "But, this is something serious now, what I'm about to tell you, you are going to pretty upset with me about. I don't know how much you know about the situation with Mr. Schue and his wife…well ex-wife now, but I know quite a lot."

"I know that they were havin' a baby and now they're not, did she miscarry or something?" Mercedes asked.

"No, she was never pregnant, she thought she was. They had been growing apart but the baby seemed to bring them closer, so when she realized she wasn't pregnant… she knew she needed a baby to get him to stay with her. But she wasn't having one…..I was. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Quinn asked, not really wanting to say it out-loud.

Mercedes was silent for a few seconds. She knew the answer, but like Quinn, was reluctant to say it. "You were going to give her your baby."

"She pretended to be pregnant, I don't know how I thought we could actually pull it off, I mean what husband goes nine months without touching his wife's belly or even just seeing her get dressed or something? I think I was more focused on knowing that with him, my baby would have a good father."

"Did Finn know?"

"No," Quinn said quickly. "I couldn't trust him to keep something like that from Mr. Schue. And I can't imagine what you must be thinking about me right now, but I honestly never wanted to hurt Mr. Schue. But, it's all settled now, the truth came out and I talked to Mr. Schue about it and it's all good. Well as good as can be, but I'll get to that later. Just let me get to the end before you pass judgment."

"Okay," Mercedes said, fairly.

"It all kind of snowballed after that. Puck joined Glee to get closer to me but then started dating Rachel which seemed really weird to me but at the same time I kinda hoped it would distract him like I hoped Santana would distract him earlier in the year. Of course we were now in a much different situation than we were then. And I was hoping he would distract her from Finn, fat chance. They were over before the week was out.

"Oh, but before that happened we had the split-up teams because of the vitamin-D fiasco. Mr. Schue assigned our team "No Air" with, naturally, Finn and Rachel doing everything and me, Puck and Brittany being background scenery. And in their typical fashion it was all googly eyes and touching all over each other when they do a duet, no I wasn't standing right behind them at all don't mind me! I seriously wanted to bludgeon both of them with my mic stand. I mean I just really wished at that point that Finn would grow a pair and break up with me, because God knows I wasn't going to leave him. But I knew he didn't want me anymore. I even organized a Cheerios routine around Diana Ross' "You Keep Me Hangin' On". He even told me that week that he wished I was more like Rachel."

Mercedes gave Quinn a look that could only be translated as "Oh no he di-in't"

"Yeah, it was right after he suggested the name 'Drizzle'. I told him he was being insensitive trying to name the baby when I had told him we weren't keeping it and he was like 'well what else do you want me to do?'. I don't know, I'd like some sort of contribution from you other than a baby name. How about spending the time that we're in a room together focusing your attention on me, your girlfriend, instead of Rachel. Like, Mr. Schue took us to an appointment and Finn saw the baby for the first time and for that half-hour he was all about me and the baby. As soon as we got back to school…BAM, back in Berryland.

"And then he was like 'this is happening to me too' and to an extent it was but his life wasn't nearly as ruined as mine, his life had barely changed at all! This was before I started pushing him to get a job. I hoped he would take some initiative and see that as the next required step on his own but he didn't, I finally had to bring it up. So then I told him that he wasn't the one who was going to get burned at the stake by his parents when they found out and that's when he told me he wished I was more like Rachel because she cares about his feelings." Quinn said in a sardonic tone that was just begging for her to add 'Well bless your poor little heart'

"I mean, seriously what did his feelings have to do with any of this? Sorry if I'm not gonna coddle you like she would when you certainly don't seem too worried about my feelings at the moment. Sometimes the truth hurts, deal with it! You don't ever get your feelings hurt, you don't grow. Do you know why the Cheerios have won six consecutive National Championships? 'Cause we get ripped a new one every practice. The fact that it only helped exacerbate my low self-esteem and body image issues is completely beside the point!

"So then he said, "And she sticks up for us. She gave Jacob a pair of her underwear so he wouldn't blog about you being pregnant." I was thinking 'Really?-Really.' He honestly believed Rachel did that for me. To protect me, to save my reputation. I mean, even knowing how dim Finn is, I sometimes cannot fathom how someone can be that oblivious. Sometimes he seems completely aware of Rachel's intentions and motivations but times like that just…" Quinn let out a heavy sigh

"Rachel and I then had a bit of a face-off and she finally admitted to me that she was indeed trying to steal Finn from me, that's when I started on the "Keep Me Hangin' On" routine. Then Sue found out about me being pregnant and Jacob spread it throughout the school and Finn held me and told me it was going to be okay and I began having hope for our relationship again. Then we all got back together and did "Keep Holdin' On" and Rachel made sure to smile supportively at me like that was going to make everything better and that it was going to cure me of all my problems and make me forget that she was constantly trying to steal Finn from me," Quinn scoffed.

"Miraculously Sue didn't kick me off the Cheerios straight away. I don't know, the way she was acting it was like she was seeing someone, and she was in a really good mood. But eventually the good mood faded and I was kicked to the curb, but not before I got slushied by like 10 dumb jock-straps at once.

"Yeah, I remember that week, no one was safe," Mercedes commented.

"Yeah everybody started wearing raincoats to school. Finn and I wore sunglasses, I guess trying to be cool, got slushied anyway. I kept wearing them throughout the week to protect my eyes if it happened again." Quinn looked down and started picking at a spot on the comforter of the bed before continuing softly, "You know she cleaned it off of me?"

There was a brief silence and then Mercedes asked, "Rachel?"

"Yeah." Quinn continued picking at the spot. "I wanted to be mad at her, y'know? After everything she was doing, ruining everything….well, I was ruining everything she was adding to it. I went to the bathroom after I got slushied and I told myself not to cry, but it didn't work. Rachel came in a couple of minutes later. After everything, after all of our fighting and drama and the names that I had called her and the ways I had insulted her I expected her to….I don't know get a moment of private victory that I was getting a taste of my own medicine. But she looked at me like she felt sorry for me…and then she cleaned it off of me. I asked her why, and she said 'because you're one of us.' Sometimes I really think Rachel wants nothing more than to be accepted by us and have our friendship but she can be so grating at the same time that she pushes people away. So here she was, being kind to me and it was once again making me feel even worse about myself, because I told you how I feel that she is such a better person than I am (when she's not being a man stealer) and that is why I hate it when she does nice things for me after the things I've done to her. It just solidifies even more that she's better than me. Not to mention this happened after she had already done that a couple of weeks before when she got me to come back to glee during the mash-up competition. She said how I needed glee and that the cheerios would probably boot me once I started showing and that you guys wouldn't judge me. Then came the worst part of the conversation.

I would have tortured you if the roles were reversed, you know.

…..I know.

I think that was the moment I knew Rachel was a better person than me. The next week we fought like feral cats and the week after that she was rinsing slushie out of my hair. It makes my head spin. And then there's the fact that I found her pretty tolerable that week because she was dating Puck and wasn't overly fixated on Finn.

"But little did I know that my problems were about to get a lot bigger. Mr. Schue announced we were having the bake sale for the bus to regionals and things between me and Puck got….interesting."