Rachel insisted on taking Santana and Brittany back to hers after their impromptu trip to the Lima Bean and they didn't protest. Now that it was out in the open that they were not doing well both of them had let go of the tenuous hold they had been maintaining on themselves. Brittany had seemed to deflate before them all like an old mylar balloon, her usual graceful movements sluggish and jello-like. Santana had been steadily crying since Rachel's earlier hug. Mascara stained her face and the white collar of her Cheerios uniform and there were wet mascara tracks wiped horizontally left to right on her cheeks. She had not bothered to try to fix it.

Hiram had taken one look at the three girls and declared it a sweets and tea night, disappearing into the kitchen to boil a kettle and gather up any cookies and pastries he could find. Leroy had offered to help them set up the den for a sleepover night downstairs, but Rachel made the executive decision to announce they were going up to her room for the night and probably wouldn't be back out until morning. Leroy had understood and reassured them that he and her Dad would bring their food and tea up to Rachel's room when it was all ready.

The three girls had trooped upstairs without further fanfare. Quinn's door was shut, as had been expected, and none of them did more than glance at it before going into Rachel's room and shutting that door as well. For Rachel, not knocking was an attempt to respect Quinn's privacy.

It chilled Rachel to the bone to see the looks on Santana and Brittany's faces closer resembled defeat.

Rachel knew better than anyone that Santana and Brittany wouldn't go down without a fight. The problem was that this particular fight had sucker punched them and proceeded to stomp on them while they were down. That, coupled with the weight of years of friendship and estrangement, was taking a huge toll that Rachel was ashamed she had not seen.

Brittany sat herself down at the foot of Rachel's bed, cross-legged and turning her gaze to the carpet of Rachel's floor with apathetic intent. Santana retreated into Rachel's bathroom and closed the door. Rachel could hear Santana turn the water on and assumed Santana was probably washing her face to deal with the tears and make-up smears. Rachel realized with a start that she had no idea what to do next. They were her best friends and she had not one single idea what she should do or say.

How was she supposed to ask them what was going through their minds? Should she just come out and ask it? "Hey, I know this is rough right now but what are you thinking and how can I help?" That sounded awful. She had to do better. But how? What words would be the right ones? Were there right words at all?

Santana returned, face scrubbed of makeup to the point that Rachel could see the bags under her eyes that she hadn't seen before. Even though San had stayed the night Rachel had missed the sheer exhaustion, missed the signs of the downward spiral. Santana looked at Brittany's back for a moment, still in the doorframe, before she went to the head of Rachel's bed and sat herself nestled amongst the pillows. By the flicker of her eyes Rachel could see that Brittany sensed her girlfriend settling in, but she didn't outwardly react and didn't move to close the distance.

Rachel felt a twisting in her gut. She could read her friends better than she could read herself and knew instantly it wasn't anything to do with one another that had driven them to place themselves so far apart on her bed. It was shame, shame they could finally show in the safety of their own company where only trusted eyes could see. Rachel knew and understood, because she felt the shame of failure too.

Taking a step forward she knelt in front of Brittany, putting her hands on Britt's knees and trying to meet Brittany's eyes. "Thank you." She looked at Santana, aching to be able to touch her as well but the distance meant she had had to pick. She had picked Brittany because she knew that if Santana saw Brittany receive comfort and perk up in any way, that would work to cheer her up far better than if she had gone to San first. "Thank both of you," she directed at Santana. "You are the best friends anyone could ever ask for."

"Are we?" Brittany finally looked up to meet Rachel's eyes and when Rachel looked back from Santana she met the cold blue eyes of a stranger. She almost pushed away in alarm. A smile of hard carved anger painted Brittany's face and she said, voice like ice shrapnel, "Because all this is my fault and I think that makes me a pretty shitty friend."

"What?" Rachel asked, voice louder than she had meant it with shock. "What are you talking about?"

"Brittany?" Santana too looked shocked, and she leaned forward with her arms crossed over her chest and concern bright in her eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, San," Brittany said without looking over her shoulder to even see Santana. "Don't because I know you haven't thought this through to that fact, but it's true. All I've been doing for fifty seven hours has been thinking and thinking and asking. What could we have done, how could we have helped sooner, saved our Quinn faster. I know what it is now because I listened to all the answers all the way, and the answer is that if I hadn't been me, she would have still been our friend and someone would have seen. We were so close to it. We would have seen if she'd kept us. But she didn't keep us because of me and because her dad wanted to hurt me and she wanted to protect us. All she ever wanted to do was protect us. If I wasn't me, she wouldn't have done what she did."

"What?" Rachel breathed, barely loud enough for anyone to hear. Santana looked like she had been punched in the face with brass knuckles.

It made no sense, none at all, and that's what their Britt had been thinking all this time? That it was her fault that no one had known? How could she be walking around with this guilt when she was the most loving, the most caring of all of them, the best of them by far?

How cruel of her brain! How unreasonable, untrue, unsympathetic!

"Brittany," Santana murmured again, voice thick with tears. "Fuck. No."

"Yeah," Brittany replied, that same stone smile on her face as she shrugged one shoulder. "Trust me, I've checked and checked the paths like a Choose Your Own Adventure that always ends in soul-crushing truth. It's been at least a hundred and twenty tries. Different ways. If we had been allowed to stay we would have figured it out cuz we were her bee eff effs and we were learning her so well. We would have double figured it out if her dad had tried something with me like he wanted. Then we would have done something. You look at it all the ways and you'll see. It's my fault."

"It's not," Rachel said firmly. Brittany started to speak with an, "If you look-" but Rachel grabbed Brittany's face in her palms. "It's NOT. It's not your fault because I'm sorry Brittany, that's ridiculous. It's not any of our faults!"

Brittany narrowed her eyes. "You liar. You think it's yours too. You can't say that to me, it just makes you look stupid."

Rachel's nostrils flared. Brittany was being awful… but she had a fair point. A part of Rachel was being just as nonsensical. Blaming herself for not finding out sooner, doing something sooner.

"You're right," Rachel said. "I am stupid." Brittany's smile faded into a thin line, her eyes still narrowed. "And so are you."

"Rachel, what- don't fucking-" Santana started to snap.

But Rachel ignored her, eyes locked on the glacier gaze of Brittany. They glared at each other, their stubbornness meeting like bull horns as Rachel leaned in and pressed her forehead to Brittany's, hard. "I'm being stupid blaming myself, and you're being stupid blaming yourself. It's not the fault of the people who love her. We would have done anything to protect her from that. It's his fucking fault. It's Russell Fabray's fault, and the fault of the system that people like him use to get away with this shit."

Brittany was frowning, still disbelieving, when Rachel gave her forehead a sharp push that made Brittany blink. "We aren't going to let them get away with it, Britt. They're trying to, they're trying to convince us it's our fault, and we aren't going to let it get away with ANY of it. Are we?"

Brittany still didn't look fully convinced but there was no denying Rachel's words for her. "No. We aren't."

"Good. Don't let them win it, Britt. We can't, or else we're one more step from letting them win it all."

"Never never," Brittany growled.

"Never never indeed." Rachel leaned back, a bright red bloom of color in the middle of her forehead. She looked back at Santana. "Never never, Santana."

Santana's lip quivered. Perhaps it was something they couldn't one hundred percent promise, but there was no way that Santana Lopez would ever say such. "Fuck that. Never."

Rachel nodded once. Her new goal was clear. Get herself, Santana, and Brittany through this next part as intact as possible. Doing her research, too, as Kurt had suggested, but Santana and Brittany were with her now and they needed her. "I love you guys," Rachel said.

"Gay," Santana mumbled, making Rachel let out a burst of surprised laughter. Santana seemed shocked herself and Britt turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. Santana gave her a watery smile back. Brittany turned and crawled to her girlfriend, nuzzling into her side. Rachel was glad to see it. It meant the shame had receded for now.

Rachel spun and went to her CD player, fiddling with it as she heard Santana groan and comment about her ancient technology. Soon the soundtrack to Evita was flowing and Santana made her displeasure known by throwing a pillow at Rachel. As Rachel had been expecting retaliation she easily dodged. She began to belt out "Oh, What A Circus!" at the top of her lungs. Santana began to loudly complain as Brittany started chasing Rachel around demanding control of the CD Player that Rachel gripped in her arms like a bright pink watermelon.

.

On the other side of the wall Quinn sat, her back pressed to the wall as she listened to the girls sing and laugh just out of her reach.