A/N: Fairly 'regular' sized chapter. A bit angsty and I even surprised myself with it a bit, but hope you like it.
Next chapter won't be up for a while and will be fairly fluffy to make up for these last few angst filled ones I hope.
Quinn's POV as always.
Keep going with the Reading and Reviewing, they always make me more elated and get me through the day.
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Five minutes ago she was crying in bed from a questions posed by the two men in front of her and now Leroy was asking her to stay over? No freaking way.
"Are you sure? I really wouldn't want to intrude and besides, Rachel and I are still very new to this friendship." Quinn thought it may be a bit too soon for this.
"Well if you feel uncomfortable then you can just stay for dinner."
"Okay I'll call my mum and let her know."
As the two Berry men left Quinn quickly fired off a text to her mum. It's not that she thought her mum would care; it's just that she didn't want her to have a reason to have say Quinn was a bad daughter. Sure her mum had let her move back in, but that didn't mean she was a good mother.
She looked up as Rachel entered the room; Quinn had forgotten her tears when the Berry parents had entered the room. She could feel them coming, but tried to hold them back as Rachel looked nervous and worried.
"What did they say to you?" Rachel asked. Rachel looked like she thought her parents had had another go at her without Rachel in the way.
"They... They said that they were sorry. Then asked me to stay for dinner." Quinn couldn't keep the confusion out of her voice or her face. It still didn't make any sense to her. She felt it was best to leave out the sleepover invitation.
"What?" Rachel looked dumbstruck. This confused Quinn even more; surely Rachel had put them up to it?
"Wait. Didn't you tell them to?" Quinn needed clarification.
"No. I just yelled at them for being mean to you. They did look genuinely sorry but I didn't want to hear any of it. When I stopped yelling they told me they needed to speak to you alone. I got worried that they would have a go at you again. It seems like I was wrong. Thankfully."
Quinn was worried all of a sudden.
"Obviously they didn't ask you first if you wanted me to stay for dinner. I hope you don't mind."
Quinn was feeling very self conscience about the whole thing all of a sudden. They had made some massive ground tonight, but it was still a big step. It suddenly felt very scary and she hoped that they were ready for it.
"No its okay with me. Well I hope you like vegan lasagne."
Quinn was confused as to how that would work but didn't really care. The Berry parents had invited her to stay over the night that they meet her. Either they were really trusting or were as desperate for Rachel to get a friend as the diva herself.
"Apparently it should be ready in half an hour. So what do you wanna do until then?"
"It's your house. How would I know what we can do?" Quinn said it with a small amount of coolness in her voice but didn't really mean it. Luckily it went by unnoticed by Rachel.
"Well I don't really care what we do. Although I suppose we could just talk and listen to some music. If you want to of course."
Quinn was perfectly fine with doing whatever Rachel wanted, but this was too good an excuse to get into her IPod. Quinn felt that you could tell a lot by a person from the contents of their IPod, and even though she knew it would be filled with show tunes, she still wanted to go through it.
"Fine, but I get to choose the music. I'm interested to see how many show tunes have ever been made. You have probably got them all." Quinn said with a smirk.
"I'll have you know that I haven't listened to all of the show tunes in the world. Besides, I have other interests other than music. It may be a major focus on my life but I do like other things." Rachel looked slightly affronted.
"I'm sorry Rach I was just teasing. Now let me judge you completely by what songs you have on your IPod." She saw Rachel's lips tweak up at the nickname and Quinn made sure to put that in her memory bank. Who knows, maybe she will need it later.
Rachel looked nervous when she handed Quinn her IPod.
"Rachel." She paused to make sure the other girl was paying her full attention.
"You know that I'm not judging you by your IPod right? I already know that you're more awesome than anyone gives you credit for."
Quinn watched as Rachel smiled genuinely. Feeling a little relieved herself Quinn began to go through Rachel's IPod touch.
"Why get an IPod touch instead of an I Phone?" Quinn asked.
"Because I like to use my phone for calling and texting and my IPod for fun." This made some sense to Quinn. She knew Rachel liked to have everything organised and on its own, not jumbled up together, so it was something Rachel would definitely do.
"What phone do you have anyway?" Quinn asked.
"HTC Desire." Quinn shook her head.
"So instead of and I Phone you have a HTC Desire?"
"Yep."
Finally Quinn paid her full attention to the IPod in her hands. She looked at some of the apps. Mostly games and all organised into folders with headings. Yep, this was definitely Rachel Berry's IPod. Quinn opened up the girls music, the last song played was some show tune she had never heard before. Again, it screamed Rachel Berry.
Quinn went back a page to look at all of Rachel's artists, when she did her mouth dropped open. There were over 1,000 bands, but that was expected, the thing that shocked Quinn was that there was all types of music, more rap than anything else. Quinn scrolled through the songs, lots of Eminem and other rappers. Quinn burst out laughing at one of the songs. Rachel looked a little insulted.
"May I ask what is so funny?" Quinn was gasping for breath but managed to get out a work.
"Dragonforce?" Rachel's cheeks went slightly pink.
"I don't rule out any type of music Quinn. Besides I may love singing but I do admire the guitarists of bands from time to time. That must be ridiculously hard to play."
Against her temptations to pick a hard rock song, Quinn picked one of the pop songs she knew. As the music settled in around them Rachel finally moved over and sat next to Quinn on the bed. She sighed contentedly.
"What?" Quinn asked.
"Well, now that you have proven to them that you really want to be my friend, my dads are going to treat you like a queen and always ask me when you are coming over."Quinn blushed. She was really happy that she had come over now. She wouldn't be faced with that again... or she hoped she wouldn't. Rachel didn't seem to think so which was comforting. Now it was out of the way. She smiled at the thought of Rachel's dads treating her like a queen though.
"I can't wait for that to start. Even though it kinda already has with them asking me to stay for dinner. I guess that I'll just have to come over a lot to keep them happy." She added with confidence. She wanted to know Rachel she wanted to be with her for longer than a few days.
"Are you inviting yourself over?" Rachel smirked.
"Well you have asked me over twice in two days. I'm confident that you will ask me over again sometime later this week." Quinn didn't know where this boldness was coming from, but she wasn't going to try and put it away. It made her feel a bit more comfortable.
"Well I might not bother now." Rachel teased. Quinn pouted.
"Well I might have to get you over to my house then. If my mum's not home. I don't think it would be a good idea for you to see my mum drunk off her face just yet."
"So is your mum always drunk?" If only she knew.
"Most of the time yes. She generally isn't as abusive like Russel used to be but she said things that she knew would hurt me." This conversation wasn't a fun one to be having but knew Rachel should probably have warning.
"You mean like how she said I only wanted to be your friend because I didn't have any?" It hurt Quinn that Rachel could talk about her having no friends so blatantly, especially seeing Quinn was the one who had caused it.
"No she was sober when she said that. But along those kinds of lines I guess."Quinn dropped her eyes. She was ashamed to have her mother like that. When Quinn was little and her mum was sober they used to have so much fun, now she hated being alone with the woman.
"I'm sorry to hear that Quinn." Rachel wrapped her arms around Quinn who leaned into Rachel. Another song started on the speakers and Quinn couldn't help but laugh.
"Really Rachel? The Macarena?" Rachel laughed too. They started talking about more girl things, before long Hiram came up to the room.
"Come on girls, dinners ready." The two girls jumped off the bed and rushed to clean up, Quinn was enjoying herself so much she didn't realise how hungry she was.
"Hungry Quinn?" Leroy asked her as they reached the table, which had already been set with food and cutlery.
"Starving. It looks delicious Leroy." And Quinn meant it. The food looked like nothing Quinn had ever had before but she was anxious to try it.
"Feel free to sit anywhere Quinn." Quinn took a seat at the round table and Rachel took a seat to her left, Hiram to her right.
When everyone was seated they all dug in. Quinn's first thoughts were about how good the food tasted, second thoughts however were more along the lines of, why can't I breathe? Rachel seemed to see something was wrong.
"Quinn are you alright?"
Quinn tried to respond but her throat seemed to have closed. She was left with nothing but shaking her head. That seemed to spark Rachel into panic but Hiram sparked into action. He rushed from the room and returned with a small bag. He opened the bag and very quickly searched through it.
"Quinn, I need you to hold still." He told her.
He pulled out an epipen and stuck it into Quinn. Quinn felt her throat slacken and she could breathe again.
"Thank God you're a doctor" Leroy said.
"Thank-you." Quinn reached around him and pulled him into a hug.
"You didn't say you were allergic to anything Quinn."Hiram said.
"I...I didn't think I was." Quinn could feel her heart pumping 100 miles an hour in her chest.
"Well we had better call your mum. It's probably best she knows what happened and you had better go home. We can look into the cause of the reaction later."
"Will you stay with me?" Quinn said immediately as she grabbed Rachel's hand unconsciously. She hadn't even meant to say that but she was too scared and pumped to really care. She needed someone with her. As much as she didn't want to admit it this early in their friendship, she really needed Rachel to be that someone. Rachel looked very pale and completely terrified but she nodded her head in understanding.
"Of... of course." That was one of the few times and she really hated to hear it. Quinn could tell that Rachel didn't want to leave her side as much as Quinn.
"Just let me get a few things first." So Rachel quickly ran upstairs and came back down with an overnight bag. As they walked out the door Leroy said to Quinn.
"Sorry. We really didn't try to kill you. We might be protective but we aren't that protective."
Quinn smiled. The adrenalin was starting to wear off and although she still didn't feel great, the initial shock was starting to wear off.
"It's okay." Quinn and Rachel got into Quinn's car and after a small argument Quinn convinced Rachel she was okay to drive. She turned on the car and began the short drive home slightly anxious that Rachel would now inevitably meet her mother.