In My Blood (Shawn Mendes)

JULY

QUINN'S POV

Cheating…Addiction…Rehab…Ripped divorce papers…Bedroom submission…Lots of talking. Honestly, I thought we'd come through it all. I thought she was ready to let me back in.

But then Puck died and something changed.

Not that she's said so but I can see it as clear as day.

She put on smiles and helped me make the most of Beth's nearly forgotten 16th birthday. We even allowed her to skip the last week of school and head to Los Angeles with Mercedes for the summer. Then for the last few weeks of June, we danced around each other…her being mom of the decade with the kids and me, being subpoenaed in a lawsuit against the hospital.

I was a key witness…or so I thought.

Had I known it was a bait and switch, I wouldn't have gone onto that stand so willingly without a lawyer.

And I sure as hell wouldn't have asked Santana to go with me.

But I've never been really good at foresight…not like her.

She'd asked me when we were in the Uber.

"Are you sure that this isn't some kind of ploy to bring charges against you even though you resigned? Did they sign the agreement?"

I had lied.

They'd never given me that kind of agreement.

I'd quit.

No reason.

But I had faith.

Ish had promised me that he'd take the fall if it came to it.

He'd resigned and was working at the Cleveland Clinic now.

There was nothing to worry about.

I kissed her temple and told her to stop worrying so much.

But then I saw him.

Sitting there just behind the prosecutor.

And Santana did too.

"He looks like he's going to shit himself."

Even then, I brushed it off.

For someone so smart on paper, I am incredibly stupid in practice.

Ish had told them everything.

Sold me down the river.

He'd told the prosecutor everything they needed to know to cross examine me and I was NOT prepared.

And there was video.

My God, there was video and had I been honest under oath, they probably wouldn't have played it but when the question came:

"Did you ever take unprescribed drugs on hospital property before or after a surgery?"

And I said, "Nothing more than aspirin."

"Are you aware, Dr. Lopez that perjury carries a sentence up to five years in prison?"

"Yes." I whispered.

"So would you like to change your answer?"

"To what?" I asked, shooting a glance at Santana who sat there looking pale and livid.

"Did you ever take unprescribed drugs with the intent to get high on hospital property before or after performing a surgery?"

He had gotten more specific.

"I do not recall." I said, not wanting to walk into his trap.

"Well luckily for you, I have something that might jog your memory." He winked and then gestured to the screen that had been placed at the edge of the courtroom. "The State would like to call into evidence, exhibit 2b."

The lights dimmed and sure enough the break room came into view.

I was praying for shitty cameras but I wasn't in luck.

This was a children's hospital, they had to put the best camera's EVERYWHERE.

Which means that whatever was coming next was bad.

And that the hospital had recordings of me doing terrible things to Ish.

I spared a glance at Ish who was looking at his hands and then Santana who had been following my eyes.

She was glaring at me when I met her eyes and then she shifted in her seat and aimed her eyes at the screen.

Fuck.

SANTANA'S POV

Six years.

From the moment that I first heard those words, a small part of me wanted to think that she was exaggerating it all.

Because it wouldn't be the first time that Quinn has lied to my face.

I had even fooled myself into thinking that her addiction was not as bad as mine had been.

Cocaine was a serious drug.

Pills...they'd been fighting for years.

Opioids was a hot button issue for awhile.

There was nationwide crackdown but apparently, not as hardcore as they said.

But when I saw the way she still looked at him today...with pity and love...I felt a coldness settle in my bones.

I just wanted to go home.

But then I watched her blatantly lie on the stand.

They knew she'd been in rehab and why...but she'd said the hospital signed a non-disclosure if she resigned from the program.

Now though, when they asked her, under fucking oath why she left...she said it was because of MY cancer.

She said it was because of MY sickness that she resorted to drugs.

And I could feel the tears burning my eyes as I looked at her.

But she looked only at the prosecutor, her answers automatic and cold...like she'd forgotten that I was there at all.

Until he asked that question.

When he asked if she had taken drugs on hospital property, her facade slipped.

And she wasn't so good at her poker face these days.

In fact, as I sat there staring up at her, I could see the onset of age on her face.

She was no longer MY Quinn.

This was a person completely foreign to me.

And it was never more clear than when the video started to play.

I don't know what I expected but it wasn't a full color video, with sound.

The door opened and the lights came on, she was talking about a six hour surgery she had ahead of her in the morning.

I watched her ringing her hands with her back to him.

She was ring less, which I knew was necessary at work but still stung.

And then he was right there...the door closed behind him and he gripped her shoulders, spinning her to face him.

"Maybe you should go home and get some rest."

"I can't. I'll oversleep. I just want to sleep here tonight."

"Want me to stay with you after my shift?"

"Only if you are giving me what I need." She said and my heart began to race.

Are courtrooms allowed to show sex?

Please God let that be a no.

He leaned in and kissed her hard, I swear it took everything not to fly across the pews and punch his stupid face in.

Instead, I controlled myself and kept my attention on the screen, fuming as I watched as she kissed him back, then she ran her hands between them.

The camera was blocked from what she was doing but judging by his moans...it was obvious.

He pulled back and dug a hand in his pocket.

"I've got to get back to my patients and I'd like to not show up with a hard on but I'll come back in awhile...this should hold you over until then." And then he handed her a little bag. "And I already crushed them for you, just how you like it."

I've been sober a decade but seeing someone snort crushed drugs still triggers me...ever so slightly.

And I had taken solace in the fact that my wife had only ever swallowed pills.

But I couldn't even get that bit of peace, what is life?

QUINN'S POV

The bottom was falling out of my world as I watched her watch me.

Her reactions were all very controlled as if she knew that both me and Ish were watching her.

Waiting for her to explode.

But she wouldn't give us the (dis)satisfaction.

I knew what was going to happen on the screen but seeing myself like this was different.

There I was fucking giddy about those crushed pills and now Santana would see me be the biggest hypocrite in the world.

For years, when we got into the biggest blow outs I called her a junkie...told her that you had to be really fucked up to snort something up your nose.

And now...I watched her watch me...I heard the intact of breath and crinkle of the bag as I took it in and the rip of the bag as I then proceeded to lick the thing.

I remember that night clearly.

But they won't ask about it. How I'd lost a kid in the O.R. just before.

How I was sick about it because I had gotten attached.

All they cared about was that I was getting high on site...and breaking my oath.

I walked back my ignorance and admitted to everything, to why I resigned and even to how long I'd been intimate with Ish.

By the time I was done, I felt naked and hollowed out.

I stood on shaky legs and walked unsteadily past the gallery, past Ish who was up next and out the doors.

Because there was nothing left in that room for me.

She'd left.

Right after the video, she'd stood up and walked out of the room...missing the way I had to fess up to my wrongs.

Missing how Ish tried to stop me but I kept going, rushing towards the doors but his words still straightened me up.

"Get a lawyer."

What I didn't say back to him...but felt to my core was the retort..."I might need more than one."

I expected tears or yelling, maybe another one of those stinging slaps but what met me out in the corridor was her laughing into her phone.

Her makeup was still flawless...not a single hair was out of place.

This was not the evidence of what I saw beginning to boil over in the courtroom.

I smiled in response to her laughter and walked tentatively towards her.

She held out a hand for me to take and I nearly flinched but I slid my burning hand into her cool one.

It was reassuring and calming but I wasn't sure that I was fooled into thinking that she was being genuine.

But I was on her timetable with this. There was nothing that I could say to her when she wasn't ready to talk to me.

I didn't want to fight so I just let her lead me.

And lead me she did.

We walked only one block and then we stopped in front of a church.

She hadn't hung up the phone, instead she put it to her chest and then said to me, her eyes searching mine while she still held my hand tight.

"You need a meeting, even if you don't feel like it yet...right now the steps are important...and if you don't feel the need for it, I sure do."

I could have said anything at this point and most logical things would have probably soothed what we had just gone through but instead, I said the opposite of what was needed.

"Who are you talking to?"

"What?" I reached out and tried to take her phone but she dropped my other hand and took a step back. "Are you sure that you want to do this right now, Fabray?"

I sucked in a breath when she said that name and nodded. "Who is it?"

"Dani." She said, before bringing the phone from her chest to her ear. "Hey...I'm going into a meeting, I'll call you in a bit. I NEED to know more about this." Santana looked me straight in the eye and then said, "You don't have to dare me. I love you too." She was smiling now, that flirty smile and my heart was in my stomach. "Ok, ok, yeah, ok byeee." She squealed like a valley girl before ending the call.

"I can't believe you." I said.

"I'm going in...are you coming or not?" She asked, one foot on the bottom step as she reached her hand out to me still.

But I'm spiteful. Vengeful. That hasn't changed.

"Not."

"Because I talked to Dani?"

"No." I had my arms crossed over my chest, I was petulant about it even but she was trying...still.

"Come on, I can see the shaky look on you. It wasn't my intention to talk to her right now but we're friends. You have no say in who I talk to after the last ten years of lies and deceit but I'm sorry for talking to her while all this shit is going on. I don't want you to do something stupid."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"Fine."

SANTANA'S POV

I was livid but I couldn't give into her nonsense.

So I went into the meeting and left her standing there because who has time for that bullshit? Not me.

After seeing her sucking down that powder like it was from a pixie stick opened up my eyes and made me feel a sickness that I hadn't felt in nearly a decade.

I didn't like how it made me feel.

And I figured that if I felt like that then she must feel worse.

I'd been following the steps for 10 years, she had been doing it for six months...if I felt like I needed a giant bag of coke...there's no telling what she was feeling but I couldn't make her do this.

And maybe it was low not hanging up with Dani but right then, when I left the courtroom to go throw a decade of sobriety down the drain, she called me and distracted me without even knowing.

That to me, was divine intervention and I wasn't going to just hang up on her.

Besides, after seeing just how intense Quinn had felt about the douche-nozzle...I could NOT get myself to care enough about her hurt feelings.

Boo fucking hoo.

Using my cancer diagnosis that she didn't even know about until the very end was a blow so low that a weaker person would not have recovered.

But I'm not a lilting lily and she knows better than to start fights that she has no chance in hell of winning.

So I went to the meeting.

I talked in front of those strangers, my brothers and sisters, I put her out of my mind and absorbed their love.

Their courage because today a decision had to be made, once and for all.

We fight this together or we move on.

Right now, the way we're living just isn't healthy.

Not for me or the kids or even her...what we needed right now was space.

Real space or real therapy and her refusing to come to a meeting told me just where her priorities were.

I took my time heading home.

For me it was all I could do not to explode on her.

And I prayed to God that she'd be there when I opened the door.

I prayed that she wasn't off somewhere getting high again.

But my hopes were low because I had allowed my hopes to get up when I left the meeting.

Hoping, hoping that she'd be standing at the bottom of those steps...waiting, waiting but no.

Nothing.

No her.

And so now, one long train ride back to the suburbs, I walked the mile home, lost in my thoughts with my phone turned way up.

Hoping, hoping but refusing to look at what probably wasn't there.

A message from her.

We'd been proactive by sending Beth and Gabe to LA for the summer...giving them a break from all the crazy.

Only Sasha was still home, waiting just beyond the door with Alicia.

Despite all of her bitterness, my daughter had stayed committed and attached to her sweet girlfriend, who showed me and Quinn the love that I we'd forgotten how to have.

I liked having her around...she kept my spirits up and spoke to Sasha only in Spanish.

She was just the happiness that our house needed in the absence of joy.

And she was what I expected when I walked into the house.

Not Quinn.

But my lips betrayed me by smiling at the sight of her.

No Alicia anywhere, just Quinn and Sasha stretched out on the couch watching Moana.

As it should be.

And telling by where the movie was, she had been here for awhile.

QUINN'S POV

I could have done anything after Santana went into that meeting but instead I went straight home.

And I could tell from the look on her face when she finally got home that she thought I would be nose deep in a pile of crushed pills or something.

But what she didn't seem to understand or trust was that there was no where else I wanted to be but there...in my own home with the one person in the world who didn't know to judge me for my sins. Even Gabriel looks at me differently but Sasha, she looks at me with all the love and innocence that exists in the world.

Sasha was curled into me, her long dark curls spread over my chest as she snored lightly, warming my heart endlessly.

The front door closed and then there were footsteps towards me, I focused my eyes on the screen and continued to mindlessly twirl my fingers in my baby's hair.

When Santana stepped into my line of sight, she was smiling at me...like a real smile and I couldn't seem to return the sentiment. I was feeling way too many things.

"Do you want me to take her?" She asked stepping closer but I just stared at her and shook my head.

"How was the meeting? Feeling better?"

She sighed and nodded before slumping down to the edge of the coffee table, her body blocking the television.

"Helpful. I wish you had come with me."

"I know but," I said, brushing my fingers over Sasha's sweet face. "I just needed this, she was my meeting. I needed her."

She nodded and began to rub at her thighs with her hands, her eyes on Sasha instead of me.

"That's just it, Luce, you can't rely on people for validation and happiness. Someday, she too, will fail and if your worth is existing in our children or anyone but God, you're going to fall right along with them."

When she looked at me again, tension was written all over her face. I could see how off she was...like she had come expecting a fight and

She had built herself up for a war with me but instead she had come home to this.

I sighed. She was right and I knew it.

"Santana, I don't want to fight. I just want to figure out a way for this to be over."

Panic filled her eyes because of course I wasn't specific.

"This?" She asked pointing to me and then her. "You want us to be over?"

Before she asked, I knew for sure the answer was 'NO' but then when I heard it...my answer came out against my will.

"Yes." And when I said it, there was no panic or sadness...just relief.

"You're serious?" She said, chuckling, anger in her eyes.

"Yes." I sat up and cuddled Sasha tighter as I looked down at her face. "She's pure and unlike Beth and Gabriel, she is untouched by all the things we have gone through. If you step out of your ego and pride, you'll see that I'm right. We tried and we need to stop going in circles."

"You said that you didn't want a divorce."

I looked up at her and nodded. "And I still don't."

"What?"

"We need space, the kids are in LA for the next month and a half...this is the time. It's OUR time to get our shit together once and for all."

"What about Sasha?"

"As much as it hurts...I think you should take her with you."

"With me? Am I going somewhere?"

"We both are."

"I'm so confused...what is happening right now?" There were tears in place of anger now but I was cool and collected.

"I need to deal with this situation on my own. For our family, for me...I need to be full for myself in order to love you and the kids the way that I should because it was clear as day to me when I watched myself on that screen, I have become my father. I can't rely on you, the kids or anyone else but God. You're completely right so right now, today...we take a break. A real one."

"And what makes you think this time will be any different than the other fifty times that we've done this?"

"This time I want it to work and so it will."

"What makes you so sure that I do?"

"Well...do you?"

"Against my better judgment...I do because apparently I'm just a glutton for punishment."

"Touche."

AUGUST

SANTANA'S POV

"You're pacing."

"I know."

"In $400 heels."

"Got them on sale for $250."

"My God, the fact that you consider THAT a sale is insane!"

"The fact that you knew the exact price of my shoes makes you no better." I threw back as I passed her yet again.

"Indeed."

"What is taking so long?"

"You know that she wouldn't want you freaking out like this."

"Yeah, well I can't help it. You've known me long enough to know that it's very hard for me to just can't sit and do nothing."

"And how is this incessant pacing doing anything?"

With those words I stopped short and turned towards her with the rage seeping through my pores but when I saw her face, I deflated because all these years later, I could never really get mad at her.

Even now, which was really fucking annoying.

"It's keeping me from losing my mind. I didn't want this break, Rachel...you know how much it hurt me to leave my home and show up on your door step...right?"

"Yes."

"And you know how hard it's been to have NO contact with her for the last 32 days, right?"

"She was in rehab for longer."

"I know that but I had distractions like chemo and chopping off my tits."

"I...I...shit, I'm sorry." She deflated.

"No, don't be. I'm okay. The doctor said as much at my check up...no traces of cancer in my entire body. Full remission...don't be sorry."

"I wasn't there."

"It wasn't your job to be. Don't get self-deprecating, you know I have no patience for it."

"And yet you married Quinn Fabray...twice! She's the QUEEN of feeling bad for herself!"

"Don't!" I snapped and she threw her hands up and rolled her eyes.

"You know that I'm right, Santana."

I didn't have time to answer because right then her phone rang and it took everything in me not to lunge across the room and snatch it from her fingers.

Rachel sat there, phone pressed to her ear with a non-expression as she listened.

I rocked in my heels and checked my watch...one of the last gifts that Quinn had given me...which only made me more anxious.

Less than thirty seconds later, I was still staring at my watch, Rachel put the phone out and looked at me.

"She wants to talk to you."

And just like that, spell was broken.

32 days into our break, I'd finally get to talk to my wife.

Who knew I cared so much?

And who knows if she cares at all?

QUINN'S POV

One day after I testified, I was called in to see the distract attorney and offered a deal.

30 days in prison for my testimony against Ish.

It was a one time offer and as I have since learned from my time behind bars with a lawyer for a roommate, if I had gone in with a lawyer, I could have gotten immunity.

But honestly, it seemed like divine intervention at it's finest.

I had just asked my wife to give me a break from our marriage until Labor Day...the first Monday in September and not even a full day after she and Sasha left for New York, I was going to testify and then turn myself in to serve a 30 day sentence.

Away from drugs.

Away from Ish.

With entirely too much time to do nothing but work on myself.

So even if this terrified me, I was at least glad that I could WALK into it with my eyes open.

I vowed to use the time to meditate, to read, to pray and really connect with myself.

And despite the over inflated sense of self that I walked into that place with...I did do all of those things and then some.

I feel bad about saying it but it was days before I even wondered about my children or my wife.

And when I finally did think about them, it was with the revelation that for the last 32 years of my life, I have lived entirely in a world where I am the star.

Maybe that isn't revelatory to anyone else, Rachel tells me that she knew that within seconds of meeting me and my slushie facial but for me...even through everything I thought I was the longsuffering martyr.

I was the one that everyone should pity because it was me who had lost the most.

And sacrificed the most.

Which is completely idiotic.

I was born with silver spoon in my mouth.

I graduated from TWO Ivy League colleges and I threw away my career as a surgeon chasing a high.

Plus, I had someone who was raising MY child for me...I was selfish.

I AM selfish.

And now that I realize that, acknowledge that...I can truly grow in myself.

In my faith and humility.

The thing I am most proud of about serving time, is that I reconnected with the God that I had been forced to worship as a child.

But this time, I was choosing him.

Fully.

I attended church, broadcast from an amazing one in the city and with that ritual in place, I began the process of filling myself up.

Making myself whole.

Rehab had been forced on me and so had recovery...actually so had prison but this time, I wasn't doing it for anyone else. Like Mercedes is always saying, if I'm going to be selfish it's going to be spent in self care and love so that I can be a better person to everyone else.

And before I always rolled my eyes but now, I feel it.

Self-care means that I can care for others.

Self-love means that I know how to love others.

I felt reborn.

New.

The only lingering issue that I kept mulling over and over again was what to do about my marriage.

I loved her now more than I ever had.

Not because of anything more than finally realizing just how much she loved me, even when I least deserved it.

Sitting in that room for 22 hours a day made me really think about how I had relied on EVERYONE else around me for validation and then blamed them when they failed because it meant that I failed too.

It was my hope that now...no matter what, that I didn't punish her for loving me the way that she did.

Divorce or not, she was my BEST friend and short of Jesus, she loved me more than I always felt I deserved.

And so when I called Rachel, who had agreed to pick me up, so that I could give her a time to come get me, I felt that at the very least I could give her an answer to the question she had asked when we last spoke.

"Do you want a divorce?"

SANTANA'S POV

Staying with Rachel meant that I was surrounding myself and Sasha with a different reality...one of a celebrity.

Rachel had a Tony and a Grammy award now, there were people clamoring to take her picture...which weird but more than anything, it gave me an opportunity to see life on the other side.

I'd always wanted fame.

But living with her, for just a month at my age with my past, made me feel exposed in a way that I never thought possible.

I was in tabloids, listed as her new live in nanny and how Rachel had been kind enough to let me bring my own "fatherless" child to stay. That was after just one bad photo of me in sweats with little Anthony on one hip and Sasha on the other.

Now, I dress like a movie star, my makeup is always perfect...like high school but with a bigger budget and better eyebrows.

They'd stopped calling me a nanny...they'd remembered my stint as her understudy...and even began to refer to me as hottie with the body.

It was a definite leap up from suburban obscurity and it was everything I didn't want anymore.

Plain and simple, I was just not THAT girl anymore.

I was a woman, with three children and a possible second divorce on my horizon.

But it sure did feel nice...for however long it would last.

And I vowed to make this time living in New York different than my last.

So despite my desire to live in Far Rockaway, I ended up in Brooklyn with Rachel and her husband and child.

And instead of working in a bar, I've been doing a guest arc on two shows at the same time while taking two classes at NYU.

The pay wasn't the greatest and the classes wouldn't transfer towards my degree at Villanova but they were valuable.

Life changing.

Enough to make me want to really consider staying in New York for good...because Philly, despite my parents now being there didn't hold nearly as much as it did when Quinn was still a surgeon but it would mean ripping my kids out of yet another school and I couldn't do that again.

I had one semester left to graduate...a lot was at stake and frankly, I was happy that it was all good stuff.

At least for me, what came of my marriage and of Quinn herself, remained to be seen.

The thing I knew for sure was that I was finally full...finally certain that if we gave this a REAL go, I would no longer try to carry her share of the marriage.

And I would make that plain to her.

Crystal clear, shit, I'd put it in writing if I had to.

Not that vows had mattered to her in the past but if I'm honest, I never really held her feet to the fire like I should have.

And maybe it's because I knew that I was the only one in this 100%, that I just let that be enough.

There was an opportunity for me to finally live up to my FULL potential and what kind of example would I be to our kids if I let their main exhibit of love be this.

I'd made up my mind.

Or at least I thought.

"We were doomed from the start." She said, then, "No...too poetic or rather ironic...how about Let's call this what it is?" She was muttering and after only a second I realized that she obviously wasn't talking to me.

"Q?" I called out and she let out this weird giggle that I hadn't heard before.

"Hi." She said, "I was rehearsing what I'd say."

"Doomed from the start?"

She let out another giggle...wait was this what nervous sounded like on her?

"Yeah...and now this conversation is doomed. How fitting."

"So does that mean you're done?" I asked, not sure what I was referring to exactly.

"Not by a long shot. There's so much I want to say to you and honestly, I want to be looking at you when we talk but for now, I will just say that if you'll have me, I'm ready to do this thing the right way. If you think we're finished, I hope that you'll give me the opportunity to change your mind."

"And how do you intend to do that?"

"By calling things how they are. I'm a martyr, I'm selfish, an addict, and I lie entirely too much."

"And I let be those things...right?"

"Wrong, I chose those things and I don't quit things...except being a surgeon, I don't want a divorce, Santana but what I do want is what your parents had."

"Have, you mean?"

"No. Up until a few years ago, they co-parented. They were BEST friends and when they were both full on their own, they got back together."

"What are you saying?"

"You know what I'm saying."

"I don't think I can give you that, Quinn."

"Then don't promise to. Just tell me that you don't hate me and we can go from there."

"I'm not sure I can do that either."

"Wow."

"Wow, what?"

"I just...I guess I underestimated just how much hurt I've caused you."

"Yeah." I sighed, taking a moment to kick off one heel and then the other before slouching down next to Rachel. She didn't move as I put my head on her shoulder. "You know, Q...we can't do things like other people. If I've learned anything from Rachel...God...I can't believe I'm saying this but if I've learned anything from the way her and Jesse love each other...commitment and trust are important but RESPECT matters the most."

"I respect you."

This time I groaned and let out a dry laugh.

"Six years, Q."

"I know but I'm not that person anymore."

"I wish I could believe you."

"What will it take?"

"I don't know."

"So where do we go from here?"

"I wish I knew, Q."

"So then, you're done?"

"Fuck...I just...I'm tired of talking in circles. That's what this break was supposed to stop us from doing but that's all this conversation has been."

"Let me show you...just this last time. Please? I'll stay in the guest room or move out until you're ready but please let me prove it to you?"

There was a loud beep on the line and then a recorded voice...I paused.

THIS CALL IS FROM THE TRENTON FEDERAL PRISON SYSTEM AND WILL END IN TWO MINUTES, ALL CONVERSATIONS ARE ON A RECORDED LINE FOR PRISONER SAFETY, HIT #1 TO CONTINUE.

My heart was racing now as I sat up straight and looked at Rachel, who was bright red.

"Prison?" I mouthed to her and she nodded.

I hit #1 and I heard Quinn's shaky voice maybe at this point she'd expected to be off the phone with me but either way, now things clicked into place. She'd been silent on social media and the few times that I tried to call her, the phone went straight to voice mail.

"Uh...so I guess we need to cut this short then."

"You're in prison." I said, my anger completely dissipated.

"I am."

"For how long?"

"I get out tomorrow, Rachel is coming to get me."

"Why didn't I know about that?"

"Um...I just wanted you to not worry and I wanted to be able to focus on me."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"So what happens after you get out?"

"Before Rachel gets here, I get an ankle monitor put on that I'll wear for another month. I have to go to see a therapist, a drug counselor and pay restitution to the hospital."

"And if I said for you to move out, what would you have done then?"

"I see where your line of questioning is going and because we don't have a lot of time I'll just cut to the chase. It was my decision not to tell you and no I don't regret it. You enjoyed your break, Rachel kept me updated. I know you've had a great time and I'm ridiculously happy about it. No, I wasn't going to keep this from you...I'm done lying about things. No, I have not told your parents or Beth. Rachel is the only person that knew and if you had wanted me to move out, I would have moved in with your parents because even though they didn't know, they would have my back. They're just amazing like that."

"They are."

"Look, I will be home after tomorrow and the kids will be home not long after that. I know you have a semi life there but if you do decide to come home, know that I will be here doing the work, whether you want me or not. I owe this to myself and to the kids."

There was another beep and a click.

"Q?"

"That's the minute beep, I love you okay, now put Rachel on so I can give her the info she needs."

"Okay. I love you, too." And I swear I could feel the smile in her voice.

"Thank you, babylove, that means more than you could ever imagine."

A/N: Is anyone even out there? If you are, HEYY chicas! :) I WILL finish. I swear it and I WILL give you the ending you deserve, pinky promise!