By the time everyone had arrived, her father had put in an order for pizza from their favorite place that would do vegan pies. Santana was sitting up and glaring at everyone. Her friends were wise enough to leave her be. Brittany was fluttering around from person to person, roving back to Santana every third or fourth person to check on her. Rachel was keeping a careful eye on both of them and mostly sitting with Kurt in a corner of the room. Kurt was banishing everyone who came their way, even Mercedes. Rachel could feel Mercedes watching them and she didn't like the calculating look on her face. Rachel loved and trusted Mercedes, but Mercedes was smart, too smart for this kind of situation. She was going to know where to look for answers, and one of the only reasons she probably hadn't was because she'd run over to Rachel's for this impromptu soiree.
Tina and Sam had set up a mini karaoke station in the corner of the room. They were singing low by glee club standards, which of course meant they were singing loud enough that their voices filled the whole house. Rachel found herself hating her friends, wanting them to leave, warring with the comfort and warmth of them just being nearby. Sure, she didn't want them there in the sense that she didn't want to talk to anyone or be bothered by anyone. But they were here because they loved her, and that love was palpable in such close quarters, and filled Rachel to the brim with a feeling of safety and connection.
Rachel hated sitting on this middle ground and envied Brittany for her happiness and Santana for her ability to hate and wallow. At least both of them had sure footing with their emotions and weren't in a tug of war with how they felt.
Rachel had turned off her phone, and she missed the message. If she had seen it she might have been able to stop the way things went down.
Cell phones started to buzz in a chorus of pings, buzzes, and rings. Not every glee member cell phone, but enough that everyone was immediately alert. Tina, Artie and Mike gathered their phones up first. Mike tilted his head, puzzled. Artie grumbled, "I thought I blocked that guy," before he read the message. Tina was the first to open her message and read it. Her jaw dropped.
"Um. Guys?"
The confusion in Tina's voice was enough to have anyone who had already been reaching for their phone hurry up. Rachel's stomach filled with dread.
"Why am I get a message from Jacob Ben Israel asking me for a statement on Quinn's…
"assault"?"
"Say what now?"
There was a sudden burst of voices as everyone talked over each other and Kurt's hand gripped the top of Rachel's arm. Brittany had frozen, pale as a ghost.
Santana burst up from the couch like a shot. "I'm going to kill him." Rachel didn't know which "him" Santana was referring to.
"Did she get attacked after the dance, I don't-"
Phones buzzed again.
"No, please-" Rachel croaked, half standing and reaching for her nearest friend as if to stop them from reading whatever Jacob had sent next.
The silence was thick as the message was read. Varying degrees of horror showed on the faces of Rachel's friends and Rachel closed her eyes.
"Her dad?"
Rachel sat back down.
"It says- Rachel, it says-"
"I know what it says!" Rachel shrieked, burying her face in her hands. "I KNOW."
"…it says he hurt her more than hitting her, right? That's what it says?" Brittany's small voice asked. Rachel looked up through her fingers. Brittany was still frozen, her eyes huge and glassy. "I heard Rachel's dads say it to Mami when I was holding Santana on the floor. I didn't want to hear it but I did."
"Hear what B," Santana asked, suddenly as still as her girlfriend. "What are you guys talking about, more than hitting?"
Brittany ignored her girlfriend, still looking at Rachel. "I've been thinking for hours and hours and hours, while you and San slept. Harder than I've ever thought in my life. I figured it out. Why she stopped being our friend. I never had the pieces before. Now I do."
For the first time in hours, Rachel felt out of the loop. Why Quinn had stopped being their friend? What in the world did that have to do with anything?
"She was always anxious," Brittany said, soft enough that Rachel registered out of the corner of her eye Sam turning off the sound of the music. "When we were around her dad. She would get jumpy, she'd start to push us to her room or push us out the door, always trying to move us away from him. And- and I didn't think about the way he looked at us. The way he looked at me. It made me uncomfortable but- but I was young and-" Brittany swallowed. "I knew he hated Santana. I knew he liked me. I didn't know why he liked me but-"
"Brittany," Santana's voice wavered so strongly that it cut off mid syllable. "What are you saying."
"He never touched me, Santana," Brittany said, looking at Santana. "He didn't. I think he wanted to. And I think it scared Quinn more than anything in the world."
The entire room was silent. Then Santana bolted for the kitchen and the sound of vomiting filled the house.
"No way," Rachel heard Sam mutter.
Rachel had been thinking so hard about the night before, she had tried not to think about the before of Quinn's life. How long this could have been going on. How long Russell Fabray had been abusing his daughter. Since Santana and Brittany? Since before? How long before? How frequently? Was Quinn's every night filled with terror and sadness?
Brittany's answer clicked into place perfectly. Quinn punching Brody in the face. Quinn cutting ties to make sure her father stayed away from Brittany. Quinn protecting her friends.
"I'm so sorry that Quinn thought she had to protect me and lose her friends for it," Brittany said. "I'm even more sorry that I didn't know how to see what was going on. I was just a little kid but I wish I had been smarter, figured it out. Quinn has been so sad for so long. Nobody helped her."
It was true. No one had helped Quinn and she had suffered so much for it. How could the world be so cruel? How would anyone in Lima ever have a right to face her again? No one deserved Quinn's forgiveness, and Rachel was pretty sure no one would get it. Which was fair.
"Wait, can we back up?" Finn asked, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his head. "Quinn's dad- he… he- you know, did-"
"He raped her," Mercedes said stonily. Rachel had never seen Mercedes look so angry.
"That's- he can't do that. He's her dad? Can he do that?" Finn floundered, his lost puppy look slowly fading from his face as the Finn Rage started to build. Finn was terrible at handling his anger.
"Fuck. If I'd have known he was a perv, I never woulda kept quiet about him hurting her," Puck grumbled.
All eyes turned to Puck. Rachel's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
Puck squirmed. "I didn't know, okay! She had a bruise on her arm, said he got drunk and shoved her around some. If I had known how serious it was I'd have told someone!"
"Shit, Puck…" Sam muttered.
"You thought that her being hurt by her father wasn't serious," Rachel said, her voice deadly quiet.
"It happens Rachel. Not everyone has perfect parents. And I only found out a few weeks ago. I showed her some sparring moves to try to help her out. Jesus, you know I'd have said something if I knew what it really was! You have to know that!"
"Get out."
Puck's face fell and he pleaded again, "You have to know that."
Rachel marched up to Puck and smacked him across the face as hard as she could. Puck put his hand to his cheek and looked at her, dumbfounded. "GET OUT!" Rachel shrieked at the top of her lungs.
Puck stood and left. Finn, his blotchy Finn Rage face still on, followed.
Rachel glared daggers after them.
"It's good he left," Brittany said. "If Santana had heard that he might not be alive anymore."
"He's lucky to be alive now," Rachel replied darkly.
"He didn't really-"
"Sam if you defend him right now, I swear I will kick you out, too."
Sam wisely shut up.
"So what do we do?" Mike suddenly asked. When Rachel looked at him his face was concerned but almost calm. Calmer than nearly everyone else in the room. "How do we help her? She's not our friend, exactly, but she's close enough that it feels like she could be. And we help our friends. I just don't know if we're equipped for this kind of situation."
Rachel looked at her friends, all looking to her for answers. She didn't have them. The last time she'd known what to do was when she'd called the cops. From there… she was as lost as a person could be.
Rachel thought of Quinn alone in a hospital bed, unsure of her future, feeling unsafe and unloved. In other circumstances, Rachel would rally the glee club to perform a stirring musical number about how she wasn't alone, how she would be looked after and taken care of. That seemed tacky, insensitive. It might be different if the glee club was actually close with Quinn. But Quinn barely knew them, and was only friends with Santana, Brittany, and Rachel. Probably not Rachel anymore.
"… don't let rumors spread," Rachel finally said. "If you hear people talking about it, set the record straight. But don't go spreading it around, either. I want as few people as possible to know at school. And… since we all know that most people will find out, I want them to know the truth. I want them to know that Russell Fabray is evil and that Quinn did nothing wrong." Her friends were all nodding their heads in understanding, and Rachel felt momentarily like she had some footing.
"Demon Fabray has money," a voice said from the doorway. Santana had finally returned, green around the gills but with a hatred that burned in her eyes. "He's gonna try to spin this and people are gonna hear all sorts of lies."
"Even ones about Quinn and what kind of person she is," Mercedes mused, frowning. "You think people will believe him?"
"You think a little town like Lima is going to want to think that one of the richest people in our town is a child molesting rapist?" Kurt scoffed. "No, they'll do anything to take the easy way out and believe it's all not true. It won't even take that much to convince them otherwise. They want Lima to be a safe small town where nothing bad happens."
"We have to make sure that people believe her and not him," Rachel said.
"But Rachel… we're just the local glee club. We're popular at school, sure, but this is way bigger than us," Tina said nervously, shrinking down as if she didn't want to be the person saying this. Rachel glared at Tina, but by the looks on some people's faces she knew that Tina wasn't alone in thinking it.
"I'm not letting her down," Rachel snapped. "Not again. I don't care what it takes. I'll make sure people believe her even if I have to torture Russell Fabray into confessing."
"We'll do our part, Rachel," Mike said. "It's not all on you."
"Yeah. I don't know everything, but Quinn doesn't deserve to have her name dragged through the mud when she's already been through so much," Mercedes added.
"I just want to make everything better for her…" Brittany said softly. "I want her to be okay."
Rachel walked over to Brittany and put her hand on her shoulder. "We will. We have to."
.
Ms. P had fallen asleep in the chair reading, and when a nurse had come to tell her visiting hours were over Quinn had told the nurse that she'd start screaming bloody murder if she did. The nurse had calmly told her that if she did they would have to sedate her again, but Quinn had dryly asked how much paperwork that would create and whether it would be worth the hassle. The nurse didn't seem overly threatened by Quinn's attempts to manipulate her and had replied that she would come get Ms. Pillsbury in an hour.
Quinn sort of hated the nurse, but at least she wasn't looking at her like she was a broken doll. Most people were and it made Quinn chafe.
Quinn spent the next half hour watching Ms. P sleep. It occurred to Quinn that she loved the redheaded counselor. She'd never realized it before, not to the extent that she realized it now. Ms. P wasn't the most sound of mind or put together person but Ms. P cared. She cared so much. And she cared about Quinn. The first and only adult that had cared about Quinn in a very long time.
But nobody cared about Quinn, at least not the real Quinn. She knew that. And yet here Ms. P was. Ms. P had been there when she was at her most standoffish, most Skank. She'd been there for years, with little to no reward for actually hanging out with Quinn. She didn't get it.
The love Quinn felt for Ms. P was just about the safest love she had right now, not wrapped up in guilt or anger or lust. That made it almost more intense as she thought about it. A lot of responsibility, to love someone who she was pretty sure loved her back as much as a counselor would. More than she should, Quinn suspected.
Not enough to take her in herself, though.
Quinn couldn't really blame her for that.
"Ms. P?" Quinn eventually called out. When Ms. Pillsbury didn't stir, Quinn called out louder a second and then third time. Ms. P started awake, her elbow falling off the chair.
"Oh! Quinn I'm sorry, was I snoring?"
"No. Visiting hours are over, though."
Ms. P's head swiveled around clearly looking for a clock.
"It's 6:30," Quinn supplied.
"So late? I had no idea I slept that long. I didn't mean to sleep our visit away."
"It's okay. I slept too," Quinn lied.
"I'm glad then." Ms. Pillsbury looked into the hallway and then whispered, "I'll just wait for them to come shoo me out."
Quinn smiled. "I'd like that."
Quinn desperately wanted Ms. P to be able to stay. She'd be kept overnight and the nurses were going to routinely come to check on her to make sure she didn't fall asleep with a concussion. That meant she'd be awake exactly 24 hours after Russell- She'd get to see the clock strike the hour, get to be reminded that only a day had passed. What was she going to do all night?
Think too much.
"I don't want to be alone," Quinn suddenly found herself saying. She hadn't meant to and she was just as startled as Ms. P looked.
The surprise faded off Ms. P's face quickly. "You're safe Quinn. You don't have to be worried about your father here."
"That's not what I'm worried about."
Ms. P nodded slowly. "If I could stay, I would."
"I know."
Quinn changed the subject quickly and they talked until the nurse came to ask Ms. P to leave. Ms. P actually put up a bit of a fight, asking if she could stay, and Quinn's heart warmed. Ms. P eventually conceded defeat and walked over to Quinn's side, offering Quinn a hug.
Quinn wrapped her arms around Ms. Pillsbury and squeezed. "Thank you."
"I'll be back in the morning. You aren't alone, Quinn. Okay?"
"Okay."
It was another automatic response, but Quinn was glad that Ms. P said it.
She didn't sleep that night, bot disallowed by the hospital staff and afraid to do so. She read, watched the tv on mute. If she'd been brave enough she would have tried to Netflix on her phone with earbuds, but the idea of turning her phone on and seeing messages… or seeing nothing… there was a lot of danger in turning on her phone.
The lights in the hospital never fully went out and never went to sleep, but the difference between night and day was still noticeable. When the sun rose again the hospital sparked to life, there was chatter in the halls and more people walked by. A nurse came in to tell her she was officially allowed to sleep if she wanted to. Quinn didn't think she would, but her eyes closed and she found herself drifting off.
And then they showed up.
First, she heard their voices. It woke her up so fast she was sitting up before Santana showed up first in the doorway, arms already reaching like she was ready to grab Quinn and run. Brittany was just behind her and, behind Britt, Rachel came, clearly uncertain if she was welcome. She wasn't, but Quinn wasn't going to make a big scene about it. It would be too much effort.
"What are you doing here?" Quinn asked tiredly.
Santana wrapped her arms around Quinn and Brittany followed suit, the two girls practically crawling into the small hospital bed with her. "We're here for you, you idiot."
"We're taking you home."
I don't have a home. "You didn't need to do that.
"Of course we did! Quinn, I-" Santana stopped, her voice catching. She buried her face against Quinn's chest.
Quinn closed her eyes. There was nothing in the world she wanted to do less than deal with Santana and Brittany and them knowing. "I'm okay."
"You're clearly not okay, you're in the hospital because your dad-"
"STOP," Quinn shouted, and everyone in the room stilled. "Stop," she said more calmly, but the girls still looked spooked. Quinn didn't blame them.
"Quinn-"
"We aren't talking about anything. Not now." Not ever.
Santana and Brittany exchanged a look. "Okay, Quinn, whatever you need," Brittany said. She leaned over and kissed Quinn's forehead.
Quinn wished she was dealing with Ms. Pillsbury instead.
"Quinn?" Rachel's nervous voice ventured.
"Don't talk to me," Quinn said before Rachel could say anything more. She turned ice eyes onto Rachel. "I mean it."
Rachel paled but she shut her mouth.
Quinn turned back to Santana and Brittany. "Ms. P already told me I'm staying with the Berrys. You don't have to break the terrible news."
"Hiram and Leroy are really nice, Quinn," Brittany said. "It's not terrible news. They'll take great care of you, and you get to stay with Rachel!"
"Mmm," Quinn hummed. It didn't matter, in the long run. She had been planning to ride out living with Russell until she was 18 and now she was just switching her living arrangements to the Berrys until then. She'd be out of Lima as soon as the clock struck midnight on her 18th birthday.
"The Berrys said we could sleep over tonight if you want, for your first night in their house. To help you settle in," Brittany chirped, smiling hopefully.
"You can do whatever," Quinn said.
Brittany's face fell. Quinn felt a little bad, but she didn't want Brittany or Santana to stay. She wanted them to go back to their lives. Not bother with her or have to deal with this bullshit. It wasn't their problem. Rachel Berry had dragged them back into her life and now they were here to see the shitstorm. It was unfair to them. She was tempted to tell them she didn't want them to come, but she was afraid that Santana would burst into tears on top of her and Brittany wouldn't let go.
"Quinn?" Ms. Pillsbury knocked on the frame of Quinn's hospital door and for the first time all morning Quinn perked up, sitting up straighter and smiling a little. "The Berrys are signing you out. Is there anything we can get you before you leave here? We got you some clothing."
"What about my clothing at my house?"
"Tomorrow some police officers are going to take you to your house to help you pack a few bags." Ms. Pillsbury didn't explain how that had been arranged and Quinn wondered how Russell had reacted. She could picture him pitching a fit about how he had paid for her clothing, how she couldn't just take it after accusing him of rape. He would be seething at the news that she'd be taking some of her things.
"Can I change and just go?"
"If that's what you want, Quinn."
"We'll wait for you in the hall okay?" Brittany said, and she took Santana's hand and led her out. Rachel stared at Quinn, looking like she wanted to say something. Quinn ignored her and she eventually left. Ms. Pillsbury handed Quinn a small pile of clothing and closed the door behind her.
The outfit wasn't anything Quinn would wear. A pair of sweatpants, XL t-shirt, sweatshirt, tube socks, and a pair of slippers. The underwear fit, which Quinn was thankful for, but there was no bra to go with it. She shed the gown she had been wearing and pulled on the panties, wincing when the space between her legs stung sharply. Her thighs were bruised badly and she hadn't seen them since her shower. Her body ached all over but she'd been able to ignore it mostly by just staying in bed. Now that she was moving around every part of her sang out its discomfort. She took a few deep breaths and changed as quickly as possible.
Quinn knew she needed to keep moving for now. If she stopped too long, she'd have nothing to do but think.
She entered the hallway and breezed past everyone, stopping only briefly to make sure they were following her as she headed to the waiting room. The Berrys seemed startled to see her so quickly. They were finishing up getting a few bags of what looked like medication. The nurse giving them the bags smiled at Quinn's approach. "This is perfect, actually. I can explain the instructions to everyone at once."
Quinn had a small collection of antibiotics and pain medicine to take for a few days with a standing script for sleeping medication if she found herself having trouble sleeping well. The Berrys hadn't filled it yet because they didn't want to get her sleeping pills if she wouldn't need them. Quinn had always had vivid dreams and had learned to deal with them, so she doubted she would need anything stronger than medication over-the-counter, if anything at all.
Ms. Pillsbury drove Quinn to the Berrys. Santana and Brittany rode with Rachel, and Quinn rode alone with Ms. P. Quinn saw it coming a mile away when Ms. P started talking to her about therapy options and how she would be able to refer her places. Quinn wasn't angry at her. She thought she would be, but as soon as Ms. P started the spiel Quinn couldn't help but feel massive affection for Ms. P all over again. She was trying so hard. And while Quinn knew she wouldn't take her up on any of the offers, it was nice to have someone so concerned for her mental wellbeing.
Ms. P walked Quinn into the Berry house and Quinn didn't listen to anything Hiram or Leroy said. She followed them to what was clearly going to be her room with them and almost immediately said that she needed to nap.
With a quiet thank you she closed the door between herself and the Berrys, with no plans to open it anytime soon.
New chapter! I know the last part is pretty quick, but Quinn isn't really doing so hot and she's very tuned out. From her perspective things are just happening and happening and she just needs a Break. Which she's getting now because she's going to nap for ten hours or so.
Also thank you so so much for all the awesome reviews! Also thank you reviewer person for understanding Rachel and the glee kids and their motivations. They're trying!