"We should ask her to join glee club! She has such a stunning voice," Rachel babbled as Brittany and Santana walked her to her car. She'd been holding in this declaration since Say You'll Be There, through the rest of club, through Brittany and Santana inputting their numbers into Quinn's phone, and through walking Quinn to her car afterward.
"Are you cray cray, shortstack?" Santana demanded. "No way would she join."
"You don't know that," Rachel protested. She looked at Brittany for support. But even incorrigible optimist Brittany looked skeptical. "She was happy. You saw it!"
Santana shrugged and Brittany said, "There are plenty of things that make Q happy. She doesn't really do any of them. Except read."
"That's incredibly sad," Rachel said.
"It is what it is, Rach. Q runs as far and as fast as she can from things she can't deal with. Which, as it turns out, is everything."
"I don't think that's true, San. She hasn't run from us."
"Yet," Santana grumbled.
Rachel hated to hear Santana's addendum. San acted like it was an inevitability! But it couldn't be. No one could live with such loneliness. Why would Quinn run from them?
Was it her dad? Did Quinn want to please him? If so, why let Santana and Brittany get so close again? Why let Rachel get at all close? Rachel had to be the absolute worst type of friend Quinn could have in her father's eyes.
Maybe that was actually Santana at this point, being a Latina lesbian with a bite to her.
A Jewish bisexual with gay fathers had to be at least a close second.
Not that many people knew of Rachel as a bisexual. She'd only dated Finn, the assumption was straight until proven queer. San and Britt knew, of course, they'd gushed about plenty of female celebrities together. Santana was only interested in girls, but Britt was as bi as someone could get. Even if she found both sexes attractive, Britt only had eyes for Santana.
And Rachel…
Well, after the Finn fiasco she'd thrown herself into her responsibilities, and not a soul had been able to distract her.
Except Quinn.
The strong possibility that Rachel had romantic inclinations towards Quinn Fabray was becoming apparent. She didn't know when it had started, or why, but there it was.
Rachel Barbra Berry had a crush on Quinn Fabray, and now she had to figure out what came next.
Certainly she couldn't act on it, or Quinn would head for the hills. Best case scenario would be what had happened at Quinn's house the day she'd gone over to work on their project. Rachel wanted to be Quinn's friend more than anything else, and she would gladly push all else to the wayside at the chance to find a way to be Quinn's friend. The trouble would be making sure that any hint of her crush never showed.
As a person who wore her heart on her sleeve, that was going to be the rub.
She'd ask her best friends for advice, but Santana would freak, and the probability that the news would find its way onto an episode of Fondue for Two ruled out Brittany.
Kurt and Mercedes were out. They were gossip hounds. Same for Tina.
Puck had blurted his (admittedly true) assumptions to the entire glee club, so he was out.
Finn would get stressed, thinking he'd turned her gay.
Artie would tell Tina which led back to her issue.
This was one of those times she wished she was closer to Mike and Matt. Even Sam might be a better option.
No, this was something she'd have to deal with on her own.
Strangely enough, if Rachel had a crush on anyone else, she could picture herself going first to Quinn, over all her other friends. Because Quinn would laugh at her at first, but then she'd listen and give her honest opinion. That was something Rachel loved about Quinn. She pretended not to give a hoot, then proved again and again how much she did. Look how she'd fought for Mack. Look how she'd reacted to accidentally hurting Rachel, at what she put up with for Rachel's state of mind. Quinn clearly hated the vanguard, and complained often, but let it happen so that Rachel wouldn't go insane with worry.
Quinn had stood in front of thirty odd performers and sang, to put a smile on Brittany's face.
Quinn cared. Oh, how she tried to pretend she didn't. But her actions spoke volumes to the kind of person Quinn was. There was no hiding behind an ice-cold stare when you in turn caved in the face of a friend's assailant.
Rachel was sad to think that Quinn might not know what a remarkable person she was, how beautiful and brave and magnificent.
Was it any wonder that Rachel had a crush on such a person?
Maybe people couldn't see past Quinn's very carefully constructed barriers. To Rachel they ripped away like tissue paper. Quinn couldn't hide herself from Rachel that way. Certainly there were things Rachel didn't know, a mystery Rachel couldn't quite solve with observation alone. But the core of Quinn, her wit and her intellect and her big but closed-off heart were as easy for Rachel to see as her outer beauty. No amount of pink hair dye and angry, fear-fuelled words could conceal her like she wanted.
Not when Rachel was looking so hard.
"Rach, you best be coming to mine on Saturday. Keep me from killin' Q."
"You don't want to kill Q!"
"I don't want to, but I might."
"Ohhhh." Brittany nodded sagely, as if this made complete sense.
"Of course I'm coming, Santana, I don't want you to kill her, either. I want her to feel comfortable. You three have baggage you should sort through, but not without a mediator. I fear it would go completely off course without a guiding hand." Rachel agreed. What she didn't voice specifically were her suspicions that Quinn would be unwilling to let herself be alone with the two. Britt and Santana triggered some sort of fight or flight instinct in Quinn. Rachel highly doubted she'd last a full night with the two without bolting.
She didn't need to voice this, because Santana already knew and it hurt her to acknowledge. Brittany seemed willfully oblivious. She was certainly perceptive enough to pick up on this fact, but ignoring it seemed like something Britt was doing so that she wouldn't fall into a depression about it.
It was so ludicrous. The three girls clearly adored one another. If only Quinn would explain her actions…
Knowing what Rachel knew about Quinn, two possibilities presented themselves. Nearly every action Quinn had ever taken served one of two purposes: protecting herself, or protecting someone else.
Since there was no fathomable reason that Quinn could be protecting San and Britt, it had to be the former. After all, Quinn was in no way a danger to her friends. Rachel unconsciously touched her cheek, where the scratch from Quinn's slap was already healed and vanished. She couldn't be, right? Both Santana and Brittany had been surprised and outraged by the injury, which would indicate that Quinn had not shown violent tendencies towards them before. They'd only ever mentioned Quinn fighting on their behalf.
Maybe Quinn had felt those tendencies developing and moved away from them because of it?
No, that still felt wrong. If Quinn was truly violent there'd be more indications besides the slap and Ritter's broken nose. Both defensive reactions.
The more likely case was that Quinn was protecting herself, which led to more questions. Protecting herself from what? Love? Friendship? It certainly wasn't any sort of preemptive strike, cutting San and Britt out before they could do it first. Santana and Brittany still loved Quinn, after everything.
This, of course, brought Rachel uncomfortably back to Quinn's father.
Russell Fabray was a well-known Lima bigot, active in hate groups and political campaigns hell-bent on taking away certain people's basic human rights. Rachel had done her research after her conversation with the girls about Quinn's father. Mr. Fabray was plastered on nearly every possible hate group website that originated in Lima. There were even pictures of a young Quinn on some, the portrait of Aryan beauty. It wasn't a stretch of the imagination to think Russell Fabray had disapproved of Santana. Brittany was one thing, an image of blonde haired, blue eyed perfection. Santana was everything Mr. Fabray despised even before she added lesbian to her résumé. So while Mr. Fabray would accept Brittany, would he continue to put up with Santana? There was no one girl without the other.
Quinn had kept them as friends for three years. Was that too long a time for Russell Fabray?
… what could he have threatened to make Quinn drop not only them, but any semblance of a social life?
The question made Rachel's insides twist.
Was he violent? Abusive? Besides the obvious mental abuse brainwashing.
Did he hurt Quinn?
The question made Rachel feel sick to her stomach.
The truth was that it would explain some things, like Quinn's aversion to touch, the slap, the blemishes that sometimes appeared on Quinn's skin. In retrospect it was an almost obvious answer, but one so horrible that Rachel had danced around it to avoid the possibility that someone she cared about could be dealing with something so horrific.
"Do you think-" Rachel began, then stopped. Santana leaned against Rachel's car and looked at Rachel expectantly. Brittany, too, leaned in, clearly waiting for Rachel to continue.
The thought of voicing these ideas, of making them real, was daunting. But if Rachel kept ignoring her fears, was she failing Quinn like so many before? So Rachel summoned her courage and said, "Do you think Quinn's dad hurts her. Physically."
Brittany went white as a sheet. Santana looked at Rachel as if she could kill her, pushing off the car and gathering Brittany in her arms. Rachel recognized that Santana did this for herself, too, so she wouldn't break anything in anger. Rachel also knew that Santana wasn't mad at her, not really.
"What the fuck, Rach, where did that come from?"
"It's been weighting on me, San. I tried not to think on it, but that was selfish of me."
"How's that selfish?"
"Not acknowledging my worries because it would make me uncomfortable? Sounds selfish to me!"
Santana frowned, a blush growing on her cheeks. "But- but what if he's not abusive. Isn't it a shitty thing to think?" Santana seemed to be asking for the both of them.
"Do you really think Quinn's dad hurts her?" Brittany asked softly.
"I don't know, Britt," Rachel admitted. "It's why I'm asking you. If you've seen anything that might say he did?"
"Like what?" Brittany asked.
"Like… bruises or… maybe she let something slip. Or anything that seemed strange, that made you worry or sad or want to run up and hug Quinn so she'd be okay."
"Quinn always makes me worried and sad and want to hug her."
"Why is that, Brittany?"
Brittany frowned, clearly considering the question. "Quinn is never happy. Only when she's with us. And even then… And sometimes she had bruises but I thought it was from exercise. I get them all the time. She might be so sad because her dad hits her? Hurts her other than with words?"
"One time I got a glass of water, came back and Q was trying to fight someone off in her sleep. I thought it was the zombie movie we'd watched. I didn't think… I didn't want to think." Santana looked down, shameful tears in her eyes.
"I know the feeling," Rachel murmured tiredly. No one had wanted to think. It was too hard to think on, and everyone's own comfort might have gotten in the way of Quinn's wellbeing.
"So what do we do? How do we ask?" Santana demanded.
"I honestly don't know."
"Can't we tell Coach?" Brittany asked, tears on her face.
"Not yet. We have to be sure. If we go to Coach with this and we're wrong, Sue will skin us alive. After skinning an innocent Russell Fabray alive."
"Daddy Fabray might not smack Quinn around but no way is that guy innocent."
"You know what I mean, Santana."
"Well… I don't want Coach to skin us."
Rachel nodded. "So why don't we use the sleepover as an opportunity to pry? At the very least it'll make her relax a little. We need to get Quinn to trust us before asking something so liable. If she doesn't like us, she'll ditch us for asking."
"And if it's true?" Santana snapped. "If her dad is more of a skeezoid than we knew? Do you really think she'd tell us?"
"We can't just leave it, San!" Rachel shouted, stomping her foot. "Everyone has left it! No one has tried to figure out what's wrong! If what we ask isn't true, then at least we asked! At least we're trying, when no one else has!"
"And if we try and fail?" Brittany whispered.
Rachel froze. If they failed? If they couldn't help Quinn, after trying as hard as they could?
Four hearts would break.
.
Singing had actually been fun. And it hadn't been quite as perfect as a restful time with Ms. P, but surprisingly she'd felt somewhat rejuvenated afterward. Singing at the glee club wasn't going to be a thing for Quinn, but it had been a fun one-time event. Ms. P and Rachel had cheered loudest after their performance, and it had filled Quinn with a sort of pride.
Which was nice.
Quinn now had Brittany's and Santana's phone numbers tucked away in her phone. 4 numbers to weigh it down. Her phone had already buzzed twice just driving out of the parking lot. It had stopped for the rest of the drive home, but nearly as soon as she'd passed through the threshold of her house her phone had started buzzing again, this time near nonstop. When Quinn checked to see if Britt had texted her 50 times in a row, she realized that the girls had added Quinn to a group convo and now Rachel, Brittany, and Santana were texting each other and Quinn was receiving every text. They were jabbering on and on about homework. Quinn watched in disbelief until:
Santana: I wonder if Quinn is ready to rip our heads off yet.
Rachel: Santana! We were supposed to keep going!
Brittany: Dun now? Yay! Hi Q!
Quinn snorted with laughter. They'd been trying to annoy her? What complete dorks.
It was what friends would do.
Quinn smiled to herself all through making dinner.
The happiness she felt made the idea of telling her dad about the sleepover less terrifying.
It wasn't asking permission for the sleepover itself that was the problem. Since middle school Quinn couldn't think of one occurrence where her father had disallowed her to go over to a friend's. It just hadn't happened since starting high school. No, it was alerting her father to the fact that she had friends again. He'd wonder who they were. Of course she could easily lie, but his curiosity being piqued was never a good thing.
If he found out about Rachel, she'd get at least a long lecture about perverts. More likely he'd also reroute into Quinn being a pervert, which could only lead to bad places.
And if he found out about Brittany…
There wasn't any risk of him chaperoning a Cherrios trip since she'd quit, and she would never invite Britt over again, but the lingering fear still remained. That somehow, someway, her dad would find and hurt Brittany. Britt wouldn't suspect Quinn's dad capable of molesting her, and Quinn couldn't warn her without everything unraveling.
Not to mention that Brittany wasn't Russell Fabray's daughter. Sex with her wouldn't be a mortal sin.
Quinn couldn't let her father know that Brittany was back in her life, she just couldn't. That meant not mentioning Santana, either.
So… who could she say she was having a sleepover with? Hopefully her father wouldn't ask. If he did, she'd improvise.
While they sat down to dinner, Russell at the head of the table and Quinn dutifully on his right, Quinn worked up the courage to tell him her Saturday plans. Dinners were usually a silent affair. Russell sometimes filled the silence with talk of work, or more specifically, talk about all the minorities making his job harder and how they were a waste of space and breath. All Quinn had to do was tune out his words and nod whenever the inflection of his tone went up. She was never in danger of being caught, because her father never sought her opinion or even asked her questions unless it was a report card day. Her father cared about her in a purely superficial sense: with her taking control of her looks he'd become even less interested in her apart from the first week or so of rage. Now it was just grades and her body that he was after.
And the truth was, Quinn wasn't sure if that hurt more or less. Confirming that he didn't love her had been revealing, but also heartbreaking. When she was younger, she'd clung to the fact that at least her father loved her. Now she knew better… and that just worked to confirm that she was unworthy of love.
Her mother had vanished from her life after her father got full custody, not even attempting to see her. Frannie hated her. The people who were meant to love her, her family, just didn't.
If the people who were supposed to love her couldn't bring themselves to there was no way anyone else could.
"Daddy?" Quinn started, hating the word on her tongue but knowing Russell liked it when she called him that. Russell looked up from his meal and smiled at her. Quinn wondered how he could so easily smile at her when he didn't care one inch about her. How it could look almost genuine if you didn't know who Russell Fabray really was.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"A… friend invited me over for a sleepover on Saturday."
"Well, that sounds fun," Russell rumbled, smile widening as he took another bite and chewed. Quinn waited politely for him to finish. "Do you need me to drop you off?"
"No dad, I have a car," Quinn forced a chuckle. Normal family, normal banter, she thought to herself as Russell laughed with her.
"Do I know this friend?"
Quinn swallowed. Russell was still smiling, but curiosity was making his eyes steely. Improvisation time. Russell expected Quinn to only befriend "worthy" people, which meant Christian at least, preferably Catholic. There were only two Catholic churches in Lima, on opposite sides of town. Quinn couldn't mention a parishioner at the Fabray's home church, but mentioning the other one wasn't good either because it was on the "poor" side of town, which would make Russell frown.
Other Christianity was somehow safer in this instance.
"A Cheerio I met in Celibacy club. She's new to the club, she was pretty busy with cheering, but when she got a boyfriend she just had to join."
"Oh, well that's lovely. What's her name, do we know her family?"
"She doesn't go to St. Anne's, so I don't think so."
Russell drummed his fingers against the table. "So, what's her name?"
"Tina," Quinn said quickly. Shit.
"Tina what?"
Quinn paused. She didn't know the Tina girl from Glee's last name, and she wondered if it would sound white even if she did know it. Her dad would hate it if any last name sounded "ethnic".
"Smith," she replied. Whoa, aim lower Quinn.
"Smith? We know some Smiths. Maybe she's related."
"Maybe."
"That sounds great, Quinnie. Just keep me posted. I trust you."
Russell immediately went back to eating, but Quinn could only stare at him. Did he trust her? What did that mean, exactly? Quinn wanted her dad to trust her, but-
But that meant that he knew, he knew she would never tell on him. He knew that he was all-powerful, that she was terrified of him, that she was always going to bend to his will. Quinn didn't want him to know that. She didn't want it to be true. But it was. Russell Fabray held all the cards, and he knew it. He knew that he had shaped her into exactly what he wanted, that she was weak and sinful and everything that he had ever called her.
She wanted to stand up and scream at him, tell him that he was wrong, that she was going to the cops, that she was telling her teachers, anything, anything to not be the girl that he could trust.
Instead she turned back to her food and they finished the meal in silence.
After dinner she went upstairs and checked her phone. There were 83 new messages in the group text. Quinn wanted to strangle all three of her friends. Instead she wrote:
Quinn: Time do you want me at yours on Saturday, S?
The reply was near instantaneous.
Santana: 3, I don't want you guys around all damn weekend.
Brittany: U told me 1.
Santana: B!
Brittany: Oh, I gt it. She said 3.
Rachel: I'll bring vegan brownie mix!
Santana: And I'll sneak in some milk!
Rachel: Santana don't you dare.
Brittany: Brownies! And bacon 4 Q rite?
Santana: Sure, if she still likes it. Q?
Quinn: Of course I still like bacon. Do you know me at all?
Brittany: Yay! Mami can make smily pancakes!
Rachel: Make sure to have muffins for me, then.
Santana: Of course o princess Berry.
Rachel: :P
Quinn laughed as she watched the three friends joke back and forth, occasionally saying something, but mostly content to be a spectator to the love of three best friends.
Sorry this is shorter than normal, writing Russell is exhausting and makes me angry. Even when he's being "harmless", or whatever. I just couldn't muster anymore. But have no fear! Next chapter is a sleepover! Plenty of material there. Not to mention Mami Maribel seeing Quinn after a couple years. I haven't watched Goodbye in a while so this Maribel is mostly a headcanon version, but I'm hoping she'll be received well.
Also I have a bit of a thing for Quinn being the first to start crushing, but Rachel being the first to acknowledge and embrace that she's crushing. It just makes me smile.