Hi again! Sorry again for the delay. I know you are probably used to me saying this by now but I do make goals for a chapter a week or so and that never seems to be the case.
Anyway, as always, I was overwhelmed and humbled by all of your responses to this story. I just wanted to reply to a couple of the questions/comments people left behind.
First and foremost, I know a lot of people are looking for a lot more Shelby/Rachel stuff. They are my favorite two to write together so I promise there will be more but be ready for things to get worse before they get better because I am a sucker for an angsty buildup.
Speaking of angsty buildups, this story will eventually be a romance between Quinn and Rachel but I am notorious for that slow burn that drives everybody crazy so please be patient with me. Like a lot of people who have mentioned a love for a tortured-soul Quinn, I love the depth of Quinn too and sometimes play with that to a fault so please be patient with me. You will soon find out who the first of them to crack will be ;)
Also, side note, I do not have a particular person in mind in terms of resembling Rachel's biological father (yet). I am a Jersey Girl so I think the Italian persona is my natural go-to and it just so happened to fit in this particular instance so that is one reason for that, there will be another. And, for those asking, there is nothing seriously medically wrong with Rachel aside from the fact that she is responding to the stress of the first major realization that life is not as pretty as she once thought in a fairly negative way. We will see more of that as well.
I will shut up now. Thank you everybody for everything again. Permanent relationships will start to form very soon. These girls are really going to start figuring out who they really are soon. I hope you continue to enjoy!
Chapter 6:
Despite getting more than she'd anticipated out of her mother on the evening of their first rehearsal together, by the end of the week, Rachel has no new information to match the name and the face of who can she only suspect is her biological father.
She has no means to confirm her suspicions aside from a couple of yearbook photos and a senior superlative. It is hardly a DNA test, Rachel knows, but she has a feeling in her gut. It is him.
Rachel finds herself obsessing over finding anything she can about this man, this Peter Gabbanelli. She scours the archives of William McKinley for any signs of his name, but does not find much.
He is only in two yearbooks; one from his and Shelby's junior year, and the one from their senior year. That means he probably wasn't from Lima, but moved here later. That definitely complicated things.
To make matters worse, Peter played no sports. He was in no clubs, no student government, no anything. It is a stark contrast against Shelby's involvement in the school, and Rachel finds herself wondering how the two of them had even gotten together in the first place.
By mid-week, Rachel is feeling desperate. She had even gone so far as to try and bribe Jacob Ben-Israel to swipe Peter's school records while the AV club was changing the wiring on the PA system in the main office, but the price that Jacob was asking was too steep; Rachel is not about to forfeit another pair of panties to that creep.
Rachel realizes that she needs to start expanding her search. It will take far more than what sports Peter Gabbanelli did or did not play in high school, or how good or bad his grades were for Rachel to find what she is really looking for.
But the young brunette feels utterly and completely lost, and for the first time in her entire life, she has no idea how to make it all better.
To add insult to injury, Rachel officially breaks up with Finn on Thursday morning. In her opinion, Finn should have seen this coming, but he had still run down the hallway in tears after Rachel told him it was over. From everything that Rachel is hearing through the William McKinley Rumor Mill, he is getting some serious flack about that from his football teammates.
By Friday, she is utterly exhausted.
Beyond the mental toll this week has taken on her, Shelby has been working her like a dog in their rehearsals. She hadn't been kidding when she told Rachel that she was not planning on taking it easy on her just because of who she was or because the two of them participated in rival glee clubs.
"Hey."
Quinn rushes up behind Rachel before she can even make it inside of the school; a new record.
Rachel turns to the blonde, relieved to see her. These days, Quinn is the only person in the world who doesn't annoy the hell out of her. Things really are changing around here.
"Hey," Rachel mirrors. She tries to sound enthusiastic, but she is too exhausted.
"Did you find anything yet?" Quinn asks, falling into step next to Rachel. She has been asking Rachel this question every day since she had confided in the blonde what she had found out in the school library on Monday.
"Nothing," Rachel shakes her head. The disappointment is carved inside of her face.
"Any idea of what you wanna do next?" Quinn presses.
Rachel turns to Quinn with a sad look and an even sadder shrug. Quinn frowns, because it is unsettling to see somebody like Rachel Berry run out of ideas. Rachel never runs out of ideas. Their glee club holds a couple Guinness World Records for World's Longest High School Glee Rehearsal as proof of that statement.
"I'm wondering if it might be time to start pressing Shelby," Rachel brainstorms out loud. She isn't sure that that is the best idea, but at this point, it is starting to look like it is her only idea. She needs something new. All of these uncertainties are starting to press down against her chest to the point that she can't breathe anymore. If she doesn't get oxygen soon, certainly, she will die.
Quinn frowns at the brunette's plan. She would rather not get Shelby involved. The blonde hasn't even had the opportunity to work out how she is going to use this information to try to get Beth back yet. On top of that, she can sense Rachel starting to get desperate, and Quinn knows better than anybody that desperation only leads to mistakes.
"I might have an idea before you go running to Shelby," Quinn tells Rachel, trying to work out a plan to pull Rachel away from running to Shelby even as she speaks.
Rachel raises an inquisitive eyebrow up at the blonde. "What is it?"
"I can't tell you yet," Quinn informs Rachel cautiously, causing the brunette's eyes to dip even more curiously. "I have to make sure I can do it first."
"What do you mean make sure that you can do it?" Rachel presses. She sounds nervous, like she is trying to gauge just how far she believes Quinn will push the envelope. She knows the blonde well enough at this point to know that the answer is far.
"Just trust me, okay?" Quinn insists.
"Okay," Rachel forces, leaning into this pit of trust that she continues to develop for the blonde even as she pushes everybody else further and further away.
While everybody else drifts into their homeroom, Quinn slips upstairs to the rarely used third-floor bathroom.
She has first period free this morning, which is lucky because it stops her from having to skip. Not that she would usually care one way or the other, but the school had sent her mother a strongly worded letter in the mail the other day detailing Quinn's recent habit of not showing up to class.
Judy Fabray hadn't had much to say about that aside from a few half-assed gestures of disappointment, but Quinn knew that she would be hard pressed to graduate if she continued collecting absences, and the state would never put her daughter back in her custody if she couldn't even graduate high school…
She would have to start being smarter from now on.
Quinn pushes into the quiet bathroom in search of The Skanks. Well, one Skank in particular.
Genesis Santiago is one of the less talkative girls in the group; a girl who keeps a low profile despite her affiliation with The Skanks.
Genesis had moved to Ohio from California just last summer to live with her aunt after her mother got busted by the DEA for selling and manufacturing just about every drug known to man. The woman was poised to be locked away for the better part of the next century.
Despite her tough upbringing Genesis is kind enough. At the same time, she is hardened and street-smart and considered to be damaged goods to the self-righteous people of Lima. Their inability to accept her as anything other than the child of a thug off the streets of south-central LA is what had attracted Genesis to The Skanks in the first place. Much like Quinn, she had just been looking for somewhere to go in a world that always seemed to leave her behind.
The thing that attracted The Skanks to Genesis in the first place – and the thing that makes Quinn interested in her now – is that Genesis just so happens to also be a computer genius.
Quinn finds the girl smoking a cigarette on the windowsill of the otherwise empty bathroom; just where Quinn expected to find her.
When she sees Quinn approaching, Genesis offers her a cigarette from her pack, but Quinn denies. Genesis only shrugs and jumps down from the windowsill.
"You should be careful about being seen up here," Genesis warns, stamping out the burned-out cigarette on the filthy floor before immediately lighting up another. "You and that weird friend of yours are on the Skanks' radar now, and not in a good way. You've been avoiding them, and they've noticed. Plus, that Rachel girl really pissed them off after what happened on Monday."
Quinn swallows, afraid that she had just walked straight into a trap.
The Skanks use the third-floor bathroom because it is otherwise used only for storage. Nobody ever comes up here. It would be easy for Genesis to lock the bathroom door, call the rest of the crew inside, and have them all beat the living hell out of Quinn without anybody even noticing.
"Don't worry, I won't say anything," Genesis adds, noticing the way Quinn has tensed up. "I just wanted to give you a heads up because The Skanks are assholes."
"You hang out with them all the time," Quinn points out. Then again, she hangs out with The Skanks all the time too, and she doesn't have a much better opinion of them than Genesis does…
"I don't have anybody else," Genesis shrugs simply. She stamps out the second cigarette, even though it is only halfway smoked. This time, she doesn't light another one. "You do."
The girl picks up the two cigarette butts and tosses them out the cracked window.
"Listen, Genesis," Quinn cuts through Genesis's comment without mentioning it, forcing herself to get to the point. "The reason that I came looking for you is because I hear you're really good with computers. Like, hacking and stuff."
"Yeah?" the girl nods, pressing Quinn for some elaboration.
"I was wondering if you can help my friend find her missing father."
Quinn doesn't mention Rachel's name on purpose. Aside from the snide comment that Genesis has already made about the brunette, Quinn knows that Rachel isn't exactly ready for her family issues to be public knowledge, especially amongst The Skanks.
But Rachel needs answers and Genesis is their best source for those answers without having to go through Shelby. Besides, Genesis might be a Skank, but she isn't like the rest of them. She can be trusted.
"Who is it?" Genesis asks. Quinn frowns.
"I don't think that I can tell you that," she answers softly.
"I can't find somebody if I don't know who I'm looking for, Blondie."
Genesis' voice is all-business. Her tone tells Quinn that she is not trying to gain this information to torture its owner, she is trying to gain it because while she might be good at what she does, she isn't good enough to find a ghost; which is basically what Rachel is looking for right now.
"Fine," Quinn breathes. "But you can't tell anybody, Genesis. I'm serious. You especially can't tell the rest of The Skanks."
"I'm not an idiot," Genesis rolls her eyes. "I'm also not a snitch."
"It's Rachel Berry," Quinn finally admits, satisfied that Genesis is telling the truth.
"Woah, seriously?" Genesis asks, suddenly interested. She sounds almost impressed that Rachel could be embroiled in such scandal. "Is that why you've been spending so much time with her lately?"
"Kind of," Quinn shrugs. She doesn't have the energy or the time to explain the rest of the story.
"Doesn't she have like two dads or something?" Genesis asks, confused. "How'd she lose both of them?"
"She didn't, that's the thing," Quinn informs her. "She just recently found out that neither one of them are her parents."
"Well I could have told you that," Genesis laughs. "You should know this stuff, Quinn, you're the smart one in the group. Aren't you supposed to be in AP Biology?"
"It's not like that," Quinn shakes her head. "Her fathers had a surrogate. They always told Rachel that they used one of their sperm samples, but Rachel recently found out that wasn't true. Her biological father is out there somewhere. We just need to find him. That's where you come in. So, will you do it?"
Quinn watches Genesis's face curl, intrigued by the complexity of the story as well as the challenge.
"Easy," she shrugs after a moment. "It will cost you though."
"How much?" Quinn swallows. She had been expecting Genesis to charge her. The girl is a professional. She doesn't work for free.
"I usually charge $500, but I'll help you out for two because you and Berry make The Skanks squirm and they deserve it."
"Deal," Quinn does not hesitate. Reaching out, she shakes Genesis' hand, sealing the deal.
Genesis nods her head, dropping Quinn's hand before turning towards the exit.
"Text me later with the time and place. I'll bring my stuff over." With that, Genesis swings the bathroom door open, straddling the space between the bathroom and the hallway. "Half the money before I do it, the other half after. I'll see you later, Quinn."
"See you later," Quinn nods, watching the girl disappear through the door and out of site.
It is only after Genesis is long gone that Quinn realizes that this is the first time that she has ever heard any of The Skanks call her by her first name.
The Skanks surround Rachel at lunchtime.
Despite the fact that she still isn't sure what she did to piss them off so much in the first place, she is walking down the hallway towards her locker, minding her own business when a solid hip check sends her flying into the wall with a grunt.
A searing pain erupts through her right side. She feels her right arm go temporarily numb as all of her books fall out from under it and crash towards the ground.
But that is nothing compared to the anger that flashes through her. It is a force so powerful that it almost scares her.
She is sick of being jumped, ganged up on, bullied. The emotions that come roaring to the surface are those by which she has never felt before. It is an animal instinct – Rachel realizes – that comes when you have been held hostage by your past for weeks with no means to release the pressure.
Some of her fellow classmates giggle at her humiliation, but most take no notice of it like they are used to it by now.
The ones who do stare wait for a reaction. They want to see Rachel blush and pick up her books before walking away, too weak or too scared to stand up for herself. For all they know, Rachel Berry is still that same quiet girl who spends her days silently accepting having Slushees thrown in her face day after day.
But Rachel is not that girl anymore, and she is about to let everybody know that.
She spots the offending Skanks strutting down the hallway away from her like they own this school, like they own her and something inside of Rachel snaps.
The tiny brunette charges forward, using her shoulders to push through the crowd of students.
Her textbooks are still littered across the floor behind her. Rachel doesn't care. She doesn't even think about them. Let them get ruined. It is her dads who will have to pay for them at the end of the school year. It is the least they can do after everything they've done to her.
Without thinking, Rachel reaches up and grabs for the first Skank that she can get her hands on.
The girl is probably twice Rachel's size, but she manages to utilize her rage to make up for that fact. She spins the Skank around, and before this girl even knows what is happening, shoves her hard into the lockers.
Her body makes a metallic sort of banging noise that snaps Rachel back into reality.
She had really just done that. She has never been in a physical fight in her life. Now, she had just decided to start one with five members of the most notorious gang of girls in Lima, Ohio.
Slowly, one-by-one, each Skank turns on Rachel.
The small brunette's chest is heaving. Anger blazes like fire in her eyes, even as the girls descend upon her, enclosing her like an antelope about to be devoured by a pride of lions.
Rachel stands her ground. She may be outnumbered, but it is an instinct, wanting to hurt people as badly as they have hurt her, and even as the five Skanks charge forward towards Rachel, all at the same time, Rachel knows that she has plenty of hurt to go around for all of them.
Quinn is still searching for Rachel to tell her about the earlier deal she had struck with Genesis when she hears a commotion coming from the senior hallway and allows her curiosity to get the better of her.
The crowd that has gathered is massive, but Quinn shoulders her way through the bodies to the front.
Even before she can see anything, Quinn can tell that there is a fight. The sounds of it are brutal and primitive and the crowd cheers and cringes appropriately with every thud of a fist or crash of a body against the floor.
The last person she is expecting to see in the center of the brawl is Rachel, but when Quinn finally gets a glimpse at the offenders, there the brunette is, clinging to the back of one of her Skank friends, trying to bring the much larger girl to the ground.
Quinn's eyes widen as she takes in the scene in front of her. There are five Skanks and only one Rachel but impressively, the brunette seems to be holding her own.
That is not to say that Rachel doesn't have her fair share of battle wounds.
The brunette's lip is split down the middle. There is a shiner already forming underneath her right eye, and although one of The Skanks is sporting a bloody nose and another has a matching black eye to Rachel's, Quinn knows that it is only a matter of time until the group overpowers Rachel.
And this time, they might actually hurt her.
Quinn throws her belongings to the ground and rushes forward to help. It seems that she has gotten to Rachel just in the nick of time.
Jasmine physically rips the small brunette off the back of the Skank that she had been trying to subdue and throws her to the ground hard on her back. The blow clearly stuns Rachel, who doesn't have time to react before Jasmine connects a boot to her ribs in a way that makes her curl into a ball on instinct.
Jasmine's back is to Quinn. Quinn interprets this as a blessing and capitalizes on the element of surprise that she so rarely has against the leader of The Skanks.
Jasmine is just about to deliver yet another kick into Rachel's ribcage when Quinn cocks her fist back and boxes Jasmine square in the ear as hard as she can.
The crowd gasps in unison and then silences collectively.
The leader of The Skanks doubles forward from the force of Quinn's punch, but she is an experienced fighter. Quinn is not surprised when she works her jaw back and forth a couple of times and recovers quickly, turning over her shoulder to see who had just hit her.
When she sees the familiar blonde staring at her, something inside of Jasmine's eyes changes.
Quinn tries to stand her ground, but she can't help but to swallow as Jasmine's lips tip upwards into a sadistic sort of smile.
"You're dead, Fabray," Jasmine warns the blonde. There is a little bit of blood glistening against her temple where Quinn's punch had broken through the skin.
"Okay, break it up!"
Before Jasmine can retaliate against Quinn, an authoritative tone emerges from the other end of the hallway, dismantling the fight before it can escalate any further.
Through the tightly packed crowd of students, Rachel and Quinn watch as Shelby elbows her way to the front.
The group of girls involved in the fight retract their claws in preparation to point fingers.
Shelby scans the pathetic crowd. Her eyes settle hard on Rachel. She had come out of this fight worse off than anybody.
Her lip is bleeding heavily, her right cheek swollen all the way up to her eye. She is panting heavily from the exertion of the fight, but that might also have something to do with the way that she is holding onto her side like she is trying to keep everything in there together.
Rachel watches Shelby's eyes narrow in on her in a perfect combination of concern and confusion towards how the hell Rachel of all people had gotten herself into this situation.
It makes Rachel's anger flare again. She hates that people think her so incapable.
Clenching her fists, her fingernails dig deep into her palms as she fights the urge to punch Shelby or punch The Skanks or punch the wall.
"You five. Main office. Right now." Shelby forces her eyes away from Rachel and points out every single Skank individually. She is already assigning blame, and while she isn't exactly wrong to assume that they had been the ones to start the fight, Rachel knows that she isn't so innocent in this equation, either.
"She started it, teach," Jasmine nods towards Rachel, wiping the blood from the side of her head with the collar of her shirt.
"I don't care who started it!" Shelby snaps at the girl. "Go to Principal Figgins' office right now and wait for him there. You two!" The woman turns over her shoulder, eyes narrowing in on Quinn and Rachel. "Come with me."
Shelby grabs both Rachel and Quinn by the upper arms, attempting to steer them away from the crowd. But this is enough for Rachel. Already heated from her interaction with The Skanks, the brunette rips herself out of Shelby's grasp and takes a step away from her.
"I don't need your help!" the girl snaps. The few students who are still hanging around, waiting to see the aftermath of the fight perk again, hopeful for round two. Even Quinn feels herself tense. Shelby may be on Rachel's shit list right now, but within these walls, she is not Rachel's mother, but a teacher. And Rachel has never acted like this around any sort of authority figure before.
Maybe she really is losing it.
Shelby turns slowly to look at her daughter. For a moment, she glances at Rachel like she has never seen her before, but then, her brows slant in a tone of warning.
Rachel holds her gaze, matching it.
She hates that Shelby had just stopped her from getting the living shit kicked out of her when maybe, that's what she wanted right now. She hates that the woman holds every answer to every question that is making her act this way but can still act apathetically about it like her daughter's entire existence is nothing more than a stain that she can wash out when she does the laundry.
Rachel has given Shelby a million opportunities to be honest with her, and yet, the woman hasn't taken a single one.
"I'm sending you to the nurse," Shelby announces loudly, trying to ward off the stragglers in the audience. Her voice is taut. She knows that Rachel has just challenged her. She also knows that she can't do anything about it here. "She'll help you get cleaned up. I'll let Principal Figgins know that he can be expecting you afterwards. He can call your parents to pick you up. You two are done for the day."
"My parents…" Rachel sneers. The quip is quiet, but it is loud enough for Shelby – and only Shelby – to hear it. "Right."
Shelby doesn't try to stop Rachel when she turns around and walks away from her, even though she is moving in the opposite direction as the nurse's office.
Quinn makes a move to follow the young brunette, but while Shelby had struggled to uphold her authority in front of Rachel, she has absolutely no qualms about stopping Quinn.
The blonde has to swallow a groan of disappointment when she feels the woman reach out and grab her by the wrist, steering her back in.
"I thought that you were cleaning up your act, Quinn," Shelby accuses because she needs somebody to blame.
Quinn feels herself flush. She wonders if Shelby is being particularly hard on her because she hadn't been able to bring herself to be hard on her own daughter.
"Shelby…" Quinn struggles to find her voice. She wants to be angry with Shelby for assuming that it had been her to start the fight when really, the only thing she had done was finish it, but the truth is that she is too worried about Rachel to feel anything else at all.
"Ms. Corcoran," Shelby reminds her harshly. Quinn swallows.
"Ms. Corcoran…" Quinn corrects herself. "Give Rachel some slack. The Skanks have been after her lately. The fight had already started by the time I got there. It was five of them against one of her. They must have ganged up on her. I was just trying to stop her from getting seriously hurt."
Shelby sighs, closing her eyes. She releases her grip on Quinn's upper arm to pinch the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
"What is going on with her, Quinn?" Shelby finally asks the blonde with sad, desperate eyes.
Quinn can tell that Shelby is worried. Really worried. Quinn would never tell this to Rachel, but she'd always known that Shelby cares about Rachel much more than she lets on. Rachel wouldn't understand. She has no idea what it feels like to give up your child and watch them grow up with another family. She has no idea how much it hurts being so close, but so far away at the same time. She only knows what it is like to be on the other side of that equation.
"I don't know," Quinn lies. "You've been spending more time with her these days than I have, with your rehearsals and all."
"It's a school arrangement," Shelby reminds Quinn. She sounds like she is trying to convince Quinn of this just as much as she is trying to convince herself. "Her fathers signed a permission slip. We don't talk about personal things. It would be… inappropriate."
"Maybe that's the problem," Quinn shrugs. Shelby frowns at the blonde like she hadn't considered this.
"She doesn't want to talk to me, Quinn," Shelby finally shakes her head.
"Then make her," Quinn insists, her voice sharp. She takes a deep breath, feeling suddenly bad for snapping even if it is Shelby they are talking about here.
"Listen, I can talk to her if you want," Quinn offers after a moment. "I'll run after her. You just have to stall with Principal Figgins for me."
She watches Shelby consider her offer. The older woman isn't sure how ethical it is to send one complicit party of a fistfight to the principal while turning the other cheek to the other party strictly for personal gain. Ultimately, she decides that she doesn't care.
"Go," Shelby finally nods Quinn away. "I'll stall with Principal Figgins."
"Thanks Ms. Corcoran," Quinn nods, but she doesn't hesitate before going after Rachel. The brunette has already gotten enough of a head start.
"Rachel, wait!"
The blonde catches Rachel at the end of the hallway just before she can push out the side door leading into the senior parking lot.
Quinn can tell that Rachel has heard her, but the brunette doesn't stop or even slow down. She literally punches the door open and steps into the sunlight. Quinn picks up her pace, following behind Rachel like a puppy.
As soon as they are safely outside, alone amidst the senior's empty, parked cars, Rachel lets out a loud scream of frustration.
"I hate The Skanks!" she yells at everybody and nobody in particular. Quinn shoves her exposed hands – biting against the cold – deep into her pockets, trying to keep them warm as she shrugs as casually as she can manage.
"Don't mind them much," she tells Rachel softly, trying to force the brunette to match her calm tones. "They just swapped their morality for whatever medication they could find in their foster family's medicine cabinets."
"Yeah?" Rachel snorts. She sounds unconvinced. "Then what's Shelby's deal?"
"She's worried about you, Rachel," Quinn insists. "And if it makes a difference, she just stopped the both of us from getting our asses kicked by The Skanks."
Rachel just rolls her eyes. "Yeah, because she cares so much all of a sudden."
Quinn takes a deep breath, feeling herself harden as she steps within arm's distance of Rachel and stares at the brunette.
"Okay, I get that you're pissed off about everything that's going on right now, but you need to chill out," Quinn warns. She has never seen Rachel so angry before. The younger girl's face is beet red. She is breathing so heavily that her shoulders rise and fall with the force of an anvil. Quinn is afraid that she is going to stroke out right in front of her. "This isn't worth losing your shit over, Rachel. It's not worth losing everything!"
"That's none of your business, Quinn!" Rachel shoots back, glaring at Quinn.
The blonde retracts as she gets a good look at Rachel's face for the first time since the fight.
In the natural sunlight, Rachel's injuries look much worse than they had in the dark hallway. Her swollen cheek is red and bruised around a small cut that has opened up just underneath her right eye. For the first time, Quinn notices that it is not just Rachel's lip that is bleeding, but her entire mouth. With Rachel baring her teeth at Quinn, the blonde notices that that is because one of them has been jarred loose.
"Like hell it's none of my business!" Quinn finds her nerve. Something about Rachel's abysmal appearance helps her dig deep for it.
Rachel isn't just being desperate anymore she is being reckless. She is throwing not only her personal safety into the wind, but Quinn's as well.
"You're the one who came to me for help, Berry, so suck it up and spill. What the hell is going on with you?"
"What's going on with me is that everybody here thinks you hanging out with The Skanks is some big joke, but they're dangerous, Quinn! And I'm the one paying for your stupid mistakes!"
"You're the one who just starting a fight with them!" Quinn shouts back, feeling her own anger rise alongside Rachel's accusations.
"Says the girl who just punched Jasmine in the side of the head," Rachel rolls her eyes.
"Only because she was about to kill you!" Quinn counters. Rachel only huffs and crosses her arms over her chest.
"I was fine."
"You were on the floor," Quinn reminds Rachel. "She nearly broke your freaking ribs."
"You need to get rid of them, Quinn," Rachel tells the blonde seriously. She is not yelling anymore, but her tone has become icy and Quinn knows that she is being more serious than she ever has been with Quinn before.
"It's not that easy," Quinn deflates.
"It never is," Rachel shrugs. She is not accepting this as a valid excuse.
Quinn stares at Rachel for a moment, her eyes bearing into her as she attempts to evaluate the girl and see what is inside her head. Rachel wants Quinn to get rid of The Skanks, but Quinn needs Rachel to understand that – for the time being - The Skanks might be their only key to finding out every answer that they have been looking for.
"Listen, I need to keep The Skanks around for a little while longer," Quinn argues. "One of them is a girl who is good with computers. Very good with computers."
"She's still a Skank," Rachel folds her arms across her chest. She clearly does not understand the point that Quinn is trying to make.
"She isn't like the rest of them, Rachel!" Quinn insists. "She wasn't even there for the fight. She was just in some foster home with Jasmine for a bit while she was waiting for her aunt to be given custody. She isn't into all of the bullshit, she just needed somebody. It's not her fault that Jasmine got to her before anybody else could."
Rachel glares at Quinn for a moment. She is not entirely sure how much she should be trusting a Skank, even if it is a Skank Quinn is vouching for. But she trusts Quinn - these days more than she even trusts herself – and decides that she will give the blonde the opportunity to plead her case.
"What do you mean she's good with computers?" Rachel asks.
"She can hack into any computer, any database," Quinn elaborates. "Police, governmental, you name it. If you're looking for somebody, Genesis can find them. I already asked her. She said she'll do it."
Rachel feels her face blanch.
"Wait, you already told her about me?" she accuses, feeling her trust in the blonde shatter.
Quinn's face falls, recognizing her mistake. She watches the betrayal spread across Rachel's face and suddenly wishes she had kept her big mouth shut.
"We can trust her, Rachel," Quinn promises, trying to reel Rachel back in.
"I can't believe you would do that!" Rachel roars, the anger reappearing in half the time it had taken Quinn to quell it. "I trusted you, Quinn! I poured my heart and soul out to you and you told one of The Skanks about me without even asking me first?"
"She's one of the good guys, Rachel!" Quinn insists.
"And what about you?" Rachel shoots back immediately, her voice stabbing daggers into Quinn. "Are you one of the good guys."
Quinn swallows. The moment she hesitates, she realizes that the pause had given Rachel the answer she needs.
It makes Quinn question even herself. Is she one of the good guys?
Quinn wants to help Rachel find herself again, really, she does, but she is afraid that she has already lost too much of herself to ever be of any use to Quinn.
The blonde knows that it is wrong, but no matter how hard she tries, that voice is still in the back of her head reminding her that Rachel's downfall can be her gain. It can be the thing that gives her Beth back.
This is the first time that Quinn realizes just how dark it can be inside of her own head.
"No," Quinn settles, her voice soft. "No, I'm not."
Rachel doesn't say anything to her. She just nods like she has been thinking the same thing. Quinn has to actively pretend like this doesn't hit as hard as it does.
"You know Quinn, I just got my ass kicked by your stupid friends just because I'm associated with you," Rachel reminds Quinn again. "Maybe it's for the best if we keep our distance for a while."
Rachel finishes with a suggestion that surprises Quinn. When the blonde looks up to meet her gaze, she realizes that Rachel's face is a mask. It is pale and gives away nothing.
Quinn is impressed with how good Rachel has gotten at hiding what she is feeling despite her reputation for being the most emotional of them all. These days, Rachel sits through life the way most people sat in the church Quinn's father used to force her and her mother to attend on Sundays. Silent. Straight-backed. Staring straight ahead without offering any details.
This is not the girl that Quinn thought she knew. Rachel is a statue now, and Quinn's deepest fear is that Rachel will end up becoming just like her; a girl who has rearranged the pieces of her life so many times she had worn out the parts.
Quinn has nothing to say and Rachel takes that as her cue to leave.
The brunette shoulders past Quinn hard and storms off into the sea of cars littering the parking lot.
"What should I tell Genesis?" Quinn shouts after the girl.
"You're the one who got yourself into this mess, Quinn!" Rachel calls back to her. She doesn't stop walking. "But if you want my advice, you should focus your efforts on saving somebody else. You might want to start with yourself."
With that, Rachel disappears.
The loss of her overcomes Quinn with a dreaded feeling of hopelessness. For a moment, Quinn feels as angry as Rachel had looked earlier.
The blonde turns around. The first thing she does is throw her cellphone. The screen shatters into a million pieces as it bounces off the brick exterior of her high school.
Still not satisfied, Quinn throws a punch next. She uses the same hand that she had used to hit Jasmine earlier. The knuckles are still bruised and tender. When they hit the brick, she feels one of them give out with a sharp crack.
With a hiss of pain, Quinn pulls her wounded hand tight into her chest. She knows the knuckle in her right hand is broken immediately, but the pain is still not enough to mask the worry she feels towards Rachel.
Quinn thought that she knew all about anger.
She had spent an entire summer seething on a coastal Rhode Island town and still, she realizes that that had been kiddy stuff in comparison to what Rachel was experiencing.
Rachel had told her to back off, but it suddenly makes her more determined to get to the bottom of her problems.
More pronouncedly, Quinn realizes that this is about Rachel and Rachel only.
For the first time, it is not about getting revenge on Shelby. It isn't even about getting Beth back. It's about Rachel. It always has been.
Quinn tries to push aside the thought. She doesn't want to think about it. Still, the way that her heart pounds a little bit harder inside of her chest at the thought of Rachel forces her to realize that no matter what is going on inside of her head, her heart is always there to point back to Rachel Berry.