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Chapter Text

It is the first day of the new semester, and Quinn Fabray is the first person to arrive at the McKinley High parking lot. She is not a member of the Cheerios, not anymore, and yet she arrives before any of them. She has arrived there before the sun, and so she sits there in the car and waits.

She waits an hour before another car arrives, taking up a reserved faculty spot. Sue Sylvester exits the vehicle in her signature tracksuit, and Quinn watches as she makes her way to the football field. Quinn's old coach does not see her, which is intentional on Quinn's part; she has parked away in a corner shadowed by a tree overhead so that she and no one will see her.

She continues to wait, watching as the Cheerios start to arrive. Many of them would have called themselves her friend at one time, but that would have been a lie said only to further their own standing. Another time, they would have claimed the opposite: that they had always hated Quinn, and they would have said it for the same reason. Now she does not know what they say.

The truth is that Quinn was never friends with any of them, besides two possible exceptions who now walk toward the field with their pinkies linked together. But it was only possible, not actual. They abandoned her along with the rest. So no, Quinn was never friends with any of them.

The rest of the faculty start to trickle in afterward. Then the first few students. They cluster together, friends meeting up with friends. They chat amicably, poke fun at one another, and otherwise joke around. Quinn watches all of this from within her car.

She looks down at her watch. The glass is cracked, but the underlying gears still tick on. They tell her that it is time, and so she obeys.

The door sticks and scrapes when she opens it, but she is used to it by now, so she doesn't pay it any mind. She is in the middle of forcing it back close when she remembers her books. So she wrenches it open once more, leans over and grabs her bag from the passenger seat, then once again struggles to get the door shut.

It eventually relents, and so she is ready; ready for her first day back at William McKinley High School.

The others turn to look at her as she passes through the parking lot. They are always looking at her, no matter what or when. Once it would be awe and envy on their faces, another time disgust and pity. Now, Quinn cannot decipher their expressions: there are so many conflicting emotions there, all scrambling over each other for the prize of exposing themselves to her. Every feeling she can think to give a name to she sees represented at least a dozen times in a dozen different people.

They act as though they are afraid of her, moving out of her way as she steps through the doors and into the familiar halls. How funny it is, that now is the time they return to such behavior. She could not be more different from the person she was the last time they parted for her like this. She could not care less, either way. Step aside or don't, it doesn't matter.

English is her first class today, her first class of the semester. It is her favorite class, or so she reminds herself. The discussion within the room dies the instant she walks inside. This is good: better for her to pay attention to the teacher. She takes a seat in the front row, removes the necessary materials from her bag and sets them up, and then looks to the teacher. But the teacher is staring back at her, sweat dripping off his brow. She waits, because there is nothing else for her to do, and the teacher eventually begins the lesson.

Her pen makes smooth, methodical movements as it copies down every word the teacher says. The script is tidy and easy to read, and it quickly fills in the lines of her notebook. When the lesson is over, the page looks comparable to a contract or legal notification; so carefully within the lines and precisely written is it. No space is wasted with anything besides the relevant text.

She packs everything back into her bag when the bell rings, gets up out of her chair, and she is then faced with her first encounter of the school semester. It is Brittany, standing in front of her. Her face is a battlefield such as everyone else's, but there is at least one prevailing emotion: concern.

Brittany speaks, and Quinn leaves the room. She attends her next class: chemistry. So few people appreciate the study, but Quinn defies such a statistic. She again jots down every word from the teacher. There is no actual work to be done in class, seeing as it is the first day, but the teacher stumbles over a note that they would begin experimenting and such very soon. Quinn notes the inflection in case it could be important, but the teacher has been doing such since Quinn entered the classroom.

This continues until it is time for lunch. Quinn heads to the cafeteria, takes a few assorted foods from various trays that are currently unattended (only small amounts: a single tater-tot from a pile, a single slice of apple), and then she begins to make her way back to the parking lot. Brittany speaks to her again as she passes by, and then Quinn is back in her car. She eats what food she has gotten, then starts on her homework. There is very little so soon, so she manages to finish most of it before it is time for her next class.

Each room she enters, it is always the same response; the same silence. No one speaks when she is there, but they speak around her. They speak about her. She hears hushed words, but they are irrelevant. She is thinking about her classes.

Her eye starts to sting at some point during the day, so she heads to the bathroom. The contact is dried up, which is no small wonder. She trashes the contact and retrieves her glasses from her bag. She places them on her face, careful not to disturb the stitches, and then she is ready again.

When she turns to leave, Santana is standing there. Her arms are folded across her chest, and her eyes are narrowed. Quinn makes to move past her, but she blocks the way. She tries again with the same result. Santana speaks, and Quinn tries again, Santana shoving her this time. Quinn stumbles back a few steps, and then attempts again. This continues, and Santana's eyes keep widening every time. The shoves grow harsher, then feebler, until Quinn is let past.

She is almost late for her next class, and so it does not occur to her until she is already through the door that this is the first class she shares with her. She is sitting there already when Quinn enters. Her eyes are red and puffy, with dark bags underneath them, and there is a newfound gauntness to her face. Her mouth opens when she sees Quinn, once, twice, before slamming shut.

Quinn takes her seat and writes her notes, but they are less tidy then they were for the other classes.

The end of the school day comes, and it is time for Glee. She debates attending. Extracurricular activities are attractive on scholarships and college applications, but she doubts that Glee club would count for much. It would be a waste of time. She does not think about this, however. She only thinks about the people who will be there when she gets into her car and drives away.

She comes to a stop on the side of some small road in some rural neighborhood. She has nothing to eat, so she will go hungry tonight. She finishes up all of her homework, then double-checks it all. Once she is satisfied, she hops over the center console and into the back. The seats there are ripped and misshapen, but she lies down on them regardless. She picks up a small blanket, soft and light pink, and wraps it around her shoulders.

She sleeps, but she does not dream. For that, she is grateful.

Chapter Text

She has a scar now; many, to be accurate. There is one that stands out the most, however. She sees it every time she looks in the mirror.

It is across the left side of her face, stretching from chin to temple, bisecting her eyebrow on that side. It is an ugly thing, still red and blistering in its freshness. Her eye was spared from the cut, but she doubts that it would have mattered; it is useless, either way. She cannot see out of it, cannot even control its movements. She will often catch her reflection and find her other eye – her bad eye, as it is – staring off into the distance, supremely unconcerned with Quinn's world. She wonders what it sees there. Something beautiful, she hopes. Anything is better than what her supposed 'good' eye sees.

She attends school every day, always the first to arrive and always parking in the same secluded spot. Thankfully, Quinn's schedule is such that she only shares one class with her. She tries her best to cope with being back in her presence, and her notes do steadily improve in quality until they are respectably similar to the ones she takes in all the other classes.

Santana and Brittany attempt to speak with her every so often, as though Quinn ever had any sort of relationship with either of them. Sometimes Brittany will just come around and watch her. She stands back a few feet from Quinn and looks more conflicted than Quinn has ever seen her. Quinn just ignores her, like she does the other times.

She makes it to the weekend, where she then has nothing to do. All of her homework is already completed, all of her textbooks already read. She realizes she needs money, so she goes around town applying for jobs. None hire her. They look scared of her. Do they worry that her scars are contagious? How stupid.

Though they are right, in some way.

So she continues to look for a job. Anything, just so long as it supplies enough money for her to subsist on. So when she finds a flier about help being needed with a small pool-cleaning company, she does not think about it any further until it is already too late, and she is standing in front of a door that she should have recognized.

It is Puck's little sister who answers the door, and she gives an involuntary cry of shock at the sight of Quinn. The girl stutters out something about going to get Puck, and then she's running off. Quinn is about one second away from turning and running, but the shock keeps in her place until Puck comes to the door.

Puck's eyes are haunted, but they crash into focus when he sees her. He goes slack-jawed at the sight, giving her a moment to take in the destroyed state of his body; he has cuts and scrapes all around his knuckles, and he looks as though he has eaten or slept in weeks, his skin waxy and stretched thin over his stark bones.

The two of them are similar, in a way. Or so she thinks until she looks over his shoulder and sees his mother and sister looking concerned, and she remembers that all three of them are living together in their home.

Puck stands there, seemingly unable to speak. She is likewise disabled, so she instead holds up the flier that has been crumpled in her fist. Puck's eyes scan over it, then return to Quinn with something akin to disbelief.

She feels the sudden need to explain herself, so she opens her mouth, but only a choked, hoarse sound comes out at first. She can't remember the last time she has spoken. Still, she must tell him why she has come.

"I need money," she says, ineffectually shaking the piece of paper. Puck's eyes widen, and his hand is suddenly digging around in his pocket, and then he takes her free hand and shoves a mess of bills into it. She stares down at it, then looks back up at Puck. "When do I start?" she asks.

Puck shakes his head, pressing the money more firmly into Quinn's hand. Puck's mother calls out and asks Quinn to stay for dinner, but Quinn is already heading back to her car. She gets inside of it and drives off, disappointed that she is still jobless.

The money Puck has given her is enough to purchase food and refuel her car. She asks the cashier at the grocer about any jobs, but the lady is too busy staring at Quinn's face to respond. It was presumably a futile venture, so it doesn't really matter. Nobody wants a scar.

When she curls up with her blanket that night and falls asleep, she does dream. They are nightmares, and they awaken her in the dead of the night. She does not return to sleep.

Monday comes, and she is back at school. Puck is there, and she belatedly realizes that he had not been attending school this semester up until now. He keeps watching her, examining her as they pass in the halls. When lunch time comes, she feels his gaze as she surreptitiously skims food off trays.

When she tries to leave the cafeteria, stolen food packed away into her pockets, he stops her. He is standing in front of the doors, directly in her way with a tray of food in his hands. The tray is packed full, various substances close to overflowing off the side. He holds it out to her. She stares, but she does not know what to do.

He seems to sense this, because he speaks. "You need to be in good shape to clean pools," he says. "I'm your boss, so I have to make sure you can handle the job."

She is reasonably sure that he is lying. She cannot imagine pool-cleaning to necessitate too much physical fitness, but what does she know? She has never done so before in her life. All that matters is that she now has a job.

Puck leads her over to an empty table and sets the tray in front of her. But she can't accept his food. She has not earned it, and she will not take any more from him; it was charity that she ate last night, and she is sick of the taste. Puck watches her, stares at her staring at the food but making no move to touch it. Several minutes pass before he holds out his hand, more money clenched within, and asks her to go buy him something to eat. She complies, but she has no idea what he likes, so she mainly just grabs random foodstuffs. She brings the tray to him, filled with food he probably detests, and he thanks her and pointedly begins to eat.

Eventually, she starts to eat as well.

When the school day is over, Puck walks with her back to her car, both ignoring the existence of Glee club. They do not speak. She does not enjoy his presence, nor does he enjoy hers. They are both scars, to the other and to themselves. Her car is another one. He stops when he sees it, his eyes tracking over every scratch and dent. She continues, getting into the vehicle and starting it up.

She is just putting her seatbelt on when Puck comes up to her door. There is no window to roll down, no barrier between them as they look at each other. "Come over to my place at six," he says. "We've got work tonight."

She nods.

When she arrives back at his home at six o'clock exactly, he is the one who opens the door. He wordlessly invites her in and leads her to the dinner table. It is stacked with food, comparable to the tray which he had handed her. His sister and mother are already seated, and they look to Quinn with the same mix of emotions she sees everywhere else.

"I need to eat before we go," he says as he takes a seat. "You should too. It can be a lot of work."

She is not stupid, so she knows exactly what he is doing. But she also knows that he will keep on doing this no matter how much she tries to fight him, so she sits down and nibbles on some of the food. Puck's mother keeps on handing her more things, saying that she has to try this or that, and Quinn forces herself to mutter a 'thank you' and dutifully eat whatever it is she has been given every time.

It is more food than she has eaten in months, so she quickly starts to feel ill. The others catch on and finally stop loading her plate up, leaving her to sit there as they talk loudly to fill in her silence. Puck is the only one besides her who doesn't speak; he just eats his food with the same methodical movements as she has been.

Puck's sister is still obviously new to the art of speaking to fill in silence, so her words often drift away, leaving her to stare at Quinn and her scar. Her face is filled with morbid curiosity, but also sadness and sympathy. Always sympathy. No matter where she looks, sympathy. Does anyone really think that it helps?

She looks to Puck's mother instead. There is the sympathy, yes, but there are harder emotions buried deep underneath. A meaningless effort, to hide them away. Quinn can pick them out with the barest of effort. Puck's mother would have known, had she ever spoken with Quinn before, that Quinn can see the judgment there no matter how much she tries to conceal it.

It is not a conscious decision to hold that judgment for Quinn; she has no doubt of this. Puck's mother seems too kind a woman for that. She knows too much to blame Quinn for everything, but there is still the part of her that sees her son suffering and blames Quinn for that on some level. She blames Puck as well, but she is obligated to support him like a good parent should. Or like how Quinn assumes a good parent should; she has only the briefest experience with the subject.

They finish eating, and she thanks Puck's mother, who lies and says it was a pleasure and that they would be happy to have her again. Quinn privately decides that such an occasion will not occur again, then her and Puck head on their way to their job.

They take separate cars, because they cannot stand to expose themselves to the company of the other any more than is necessary. Puck leads her to a small house, quaint and charming (a perfect place to raise a family), and tells her to stay in the car while he talks to the people who live there. She accepts this because she knows that her face is not one that reassures people. Not anymore.

Puck comes back after a minute and leads her into the backyard to the pool. She has no idea what she is doing, so she asks Puck. Puck only tells her to watch what he does, then goes about his business, explaining nothing. It is perhaps the most blatant indication of the fact that she is only here as a pretense so that he can give her money, because he knows she would not accept any more otherwise.

But she will not accept this either, so she does exactly what Puck tells her to: she watches, closely. He may say nothing, but she is smart enough to figure it out. She knows she is.

By the time Puck has finished, Quinn is reasonably sure of what to do on their next endeavor. Puck collects their pay and gives Quinn what he determines to be her share: half, if not more, despite her having done nothing. He gives an invitation to stay over at his place as she gets into her car. She declines, and he accepts this.

She watches him out of the rearview mirror when she drives away, and she sees him watching her in return.

The next time Puck takes her out to clean pools, she takes the initiative. She does everything as she is supposed to, expecting Puck to handle whatever she does not yet know. Puck watches her for a minute in silence before he sighs and starts to help.

They do not like each other. They are gross, hideous reminders of everything that has gone wrong. But they need each other now. The only thing to remember is not to speak. Neither wants to hear the words out of the other's mouth.

That night, she drives back to her spot on the side of the road in the neighborhood where no one she knows lives. She turns off the car and stares at her reflection in the rearview mirror, which is similarly broken.

The scar on her face is the most apparent one, yes, but it is not the only one. There are so many more on her body, and so many more that she passes by every day.

The worst one lies folded up in her wallet.

Chapter Text

Quinn is walking down the halls one day when a Slushee hits her in the face.

It was almost certainly an accident, judging by the look on the football player's face. She is a background object now. The time has passed where the crowd parted for her. Now she is the crowd. The faceless entity that no one thinks about. It's no wonder the boy didn't notice her; probably didn't even see her due to his particular height, similar to Finn.

There's a horrified gasp when the Slushee hits her; not from her – she doesn't make a sound – but from the crowd around her at the sight of Quinn Fabray with corn syrup dripping down her body.

It is an unspoken decree, kept even from her, but the fact is that it has been decided for her to be the most hidden, the most unnoticeable is in the ranks of the unnoticed. She cannot say why, not for certain. Perhaps there is just too much sympathy for her for them to do otherwise. Perhaps it is because she had always enforced their separation from the war she had led: always kept them out of the line of fire because of that auburn-haired girl she was so scared of becoming again, who just desperately wanted to be another invisible one. Whatever the reason, they have shielded her, in a way: shrouded her, which is all she really wants.

Now that shroud has been ripped aside, and the crowd glares at the jock who only made a simple mistake, and who looks as though he wants to crawl into a hole and die. The crowd has turned on him, because he has violated the terms of their unspoken agreement. They stayed out of the way, but now he has put one of them in the way.

They begin to insult him, clustering around and fencing in the scene of the crime. They surround him so that he may not escape the sight of his shame, and so for them to deliver the disgusted words to his face. Amongst themselves, they discuss the value of a man who would Slushee Quinn Fabray after everything she has gone through, the loud whispers drowning out the jock's stammered apologies.

Quinn stands in the full light of scrutiny now, what with the shroud gone. More and more people keep arriving, keep gasping at the sight of her. She imagines it must feel good for them to finally let out the air they had sucked in since they first saw her return to McKinley High. But the noises just keep on attracting more attention, spreading the news out further of what has happened to Quinn.

Inevitably, Puck arrives. He breaks through the walls of the crowd, takes one look at Quinn, and grabs the football player by his collar and throws him into the lockers. The boy is still trying to apologize, but Puck is not listening. It is only a moment before Puck is wailing on him, an endless barrage of fists to his head and body. Puck himself says nothing, which makes the harsh sound of the boy's body colliding against the metal over and over even more pronounced.

Quinn hears Santana's approach before she sees her: loud demands that someone tell her what is happening as she stomps down the halls. The crowd parts easily for her when she does arrive, wishing to show her the breach of protocol in all its horror. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees.

Puck tosses the beaten and bloodied form of the boy at Santana's feet, and not a second passes before Santana is screaming at the cowering, half-conscious body. Whereas Puck was silent, Santana echoes throughout the entire school. She is saying things to the boy that make the people around her recoil and look sick. She is telling him how she will ruin his life beyond all hope of repair, how she will make him wish that he was never born, and how she will do it without lifting a single finger. She will do it and she will relish every moment.

So many are there now, all with their eyes turned on to the scene: of Puck standing with bloodied knuckles, Santana screaming down at the red and blue form that bears a passing resemblance to a human being, and Quinn stained with purple.

The faculty arrive, and there is a moment of horror for them as well before they drag Puck and Santana away from the boy; the two of them go with little fuss, both finished with what they had set out to do. The faculty talk of calling an ambulance for the boy.

Puck is given a suspension right then and there, but he is not expelled. The faculty too have so much sympathy for Quinn, and they too find what has happened appalling. Puck accepts his punishment with only a nod. They tell the students to go to their classes, and then they go on their way to make sure the boy will be alright.

The crowd's din has returned to whispers. The status quo has been restored, and they are once again invisible. Now the attention is back on the people who wanted it so much in the first place. But the shroud has been lifted from around Quinn, and now there is work to be done to make sure none of the rest are exposed as well. So they stick back, and they say nothing as the teachers go their own ways.

It is just the students again. Quinn is still standing there. She has not moved besides to look at the boy as he is taken away. Puck has already been escorted off the premises, while Santana is still standing there. She is looking at Quinn. Watching her.

Quinn doesn't spare of any them a glance. She does not want to see the sympathy back on their faces. She only ducks her head and makes her way to her next class.

The crowd parts for her when she moves, and it is an almost regretful action on their part: like they wish they could take her back in, but they know that then is not the time. It is too soon, and the shroud would not cover her how she is.

She arrives in her classroom to the customary stop of discussion, but this time the sound does not stop. More gasps and stifled cries greet her, like she is on display. Isn't such an appearance as hers commonplace by now? It is not like the sight of her specifically covered in Slushee is new, either. But this time it is oh-so horrifying to them all.

There is a steady drip from her clothing, a steady trail of purple left behind as she walks over to her desk. Some people have risen from their desks – for what? To help her? Can't they see that she does not desire it? It should be obvious to them that she only wishes for the lesson to continue: she quietly sits down in her chair, pulls out her supplies, and does not spare a moment's attention to her own condition, not even as the gash on the left side of her face burns from the liquid that seeps through its stitches.

She just wants everything to move on.

They learn to quiet down eventually, just as the teacher remembers to teach. When the class is over, they all give her a wide berth as they leave. She gathers up her supplies and follows, her clothes crinkling with each movement, the Slushee now frozen into them. She knows that she should wash them out, but she instead only walks down the halls to her next class. More people gape, like they've never seen someone covered in Slushee before. She envies the school where they wouldn't have.

Her progress is stopped by the sudden appearance of Santana standing in front of her. She is wearing her Cheerios uniform, as she always is, and she is wearing her Cheerios glare with it. The glare itself does not affect Quinn, but the strangeness of the fact that Santana would choose now to use it on Quinn causes her to stop. It makes the people around them stop as well, examining this apparent confrontation. Santana Lopez, in her implacable Cheerios uniform, versus Quinn Fabray, covered in Slushee.

Santana holds Quinn's gaze, even as she turns away and makes slow, deliberate steps. She says something, a demand for something, and then there are more gasps, and Santana is standing in front of Quinn with a jumbo-sized Slushee in her hand. She is staring at Quinn, directly into her one focused eye, like she is looking for something there. There is complete silence as Santana slowly raises her other hand up and unscrews the lid of the cup, then slowly lifts it above Quinn's head.

There is muted horror all around them as Santana slowly, slowly pours the contents of the cup directly on top of Quinn's head. Quinn is staring at Santana, and Santana is staring right back with something like triumph rising up in her eyes.

Santana pours the entire cup out, then shakes it a few times for good measure, to get every last drop. Then she drops the cup on Quinn's head, where it falls off and bounces loudly against the ground.

Santana speaks, and this time Quinn listens. "You got that, everyone?" she asks loudly. "No one else touches her. She's mine." And she smirks. She smirks as the student body reacts with disgust and horror, watching her torment the one person in the school they determined to be absolutely off-limits. She smirks as she stares into Quinn's one good eye.

But then Quinn lowers her head, and Santana's smirk drops. Her confidence, her joy, it all vanishes, and fear replaces it. Fear and horror as she watches Quinn turn around and start to walk away.

Santana's face twists into grim determination, and then she is grabbing any Slushee she can find. She rips them out of the hands of the people around her, and then they are thrown on Quinn. It's a mish-mash of color, every shade sent hurtling at Quinn. There are stifled outcries, people pouring their own cups out on the ground before Santana can get to them.

And still, Quinn doesn't break stride. She doesn't look up. She just continues walking, slowly but surely advancing to her next class.

There are voices, and they tell Santana to stop. Brittany's voice, telling her to stop. But she doesn't. One person is so fed up they throw their own Slushee into Santana's face, and it doesn't even phase her. She just moves on to the next one, now covered in blue, the determination in her eyes giving away to tears that come pouring down her face, tracking lines in the Slushee that covers her.

There is no method to Santana's movements now. She is grabbing everything she can get her hands on, throwing it at Quinn, who stumbles occasionally but does not look up. Her body is an indecipherable mess of color now, every part of her soaked to the skin. The gash across her cheek is stinging, disturbed and probably bleeding, but she pays it no mind.

Santana screams and shoves Quinn to the ground. All the liquid that covers her makes her slide up into the lockers, crashing against them. She slumps down, makes no effort to move as Santana grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her. She is screaming, but her voice is so choked by tears that Quinn can't understand it.

She doesn't care to understand.

Arms pull Santana off of her; long, pale arms which reach around Santana's stomach and yank her away. It is Brittany, and she is restraining a struggling, sobbing Santana. Brittany is crying as well, but she is begging Santana to stop.

The people around them stare in absolute horror. Some are crying themselves. What do they have to cry for?

Quinn slowly rises to her feet, using the lockers as support. Santana stops her struggles and watches her. They all do.

Quinn realizes she is late for her class, and so she walks away.

Santana's sobs renew behind her, even louder than before.

The reaction is even worse this time when she enters the classroom. There are outright cries of alarm, more people jumping out of their chairs, all staring at her. She must look like a monster to them: every possible shade of Slushee pouring off her body and filling every crevice in her clothes, her cheek and temple bleeding profusely, the latter pouring its blood down into her disabled eye. She wishes her appearance would be enough to frighten them away, but instead they close in around her, like she is something fascinating. They reach their hands out and then draw them back just as quickly, maybe wanting to comfort or just confirm for themselves that what they are seeing is real. They're all talking, all saying things, but she doesn't listen to them. She just wants to get to her seat, but they block her way. Talking to her, talking around her; a mess of voices.

One voice, which she would never forget. "Quinn..."

Quinn's eyes snap to her. She is standing there, tears pouring off her face and one hand covering her mouth, holding back sobs.

The others have stopped. They draw back, opening the way for her to get to Quinn, when Quinn wants nothing less. They do not understand, but they think they do, and that's what makes it so much worse. They step aside, and they allow her to move closer in her slow, stuttering steps. She reaches out a hand to Quinn—

Quinn's entire body recoils. It flings back, desperate to get away, and the slush which covers her shoes causes her to stumble and fall. She crashes backward against the wall and slides down it, and her arms and legs curl up. She pushes herself up against the wall, and she wraps her arms around her legs, and her breaths come in short and hollow bursts, and she tries to stop the memories. Quinn tries to hold the shroud in place while she is ripping it away.

She is looking at Quinn like she did on that day, like everything has gone wrong because it has and everything is wrong, but she won't stop looking at Quinn like she wants to say something and apologize for something that nothing can ever make up for. The others watch them both: watch Quinn huddled up on the floor, and watch her crumbling in front of them. They're both breaking apart, and they are doing it in front of an audience this time.

She gathers her thoughts first and smashes through the crowd, breaks out of the torture chamber and flees to the halls. Mere seconds pass before screams erupt, and Quinn knows that she has found Santana. It is a brief moment, a fleeting thought, but she worries for Santana's life.

Then Quinn realizes that she is no longer there, and that her presence is no longer bearing down on Quinn. Then Quinn is numb again.

Everything is still wrong, and it always will be, but she is no longer there to remind Quinn of that fact.

Chapter Text

Santana has her arm in a cast at lunch.

Quinn notes this impassively, with no doubt as to the cause. Quinn never would have expected her to be violent, especially not against someone as volatile as Santana, but if there was ever a possible cause for such a shift in her behavior, it would be what Santana has done.

Quinn also notes that she is not there at lunch. Most likely, she has been suspended as a result of her belated and unnecessary defense of Quinn, just as Puck has been. Their vigilance is far too late; a guard for something which has already been broken. Whatever attackers Quinn may face are as meaningless to her as their retaliations against them are.

But she had been there before, a voice in Quinn's mind reminds her. She had been Quinn's constant guard when the world had connived to strike her down and stomp on her supine form. Maybe that's why she attacked Santana. Maybe it's just hard for her to forget. Maybe it's hard for both of them.

Quinn feels the numbness fade for the briefest moment, and the toil rise up and feed off her, but then she remembers how to forget again, and she is unflappable once more.

She takes to examining Santana once more, if only for lack of anything else to do. Puck is not there, so she has no food, and her monstrous form cursed her with an exemption from her only distraction: homework. So she watches Santana sit alone, staring down at her food with loathing. They have all left her now, even Brittany. They collectively ostracize her, sitting together at another table, and yet Brittany looks as alone with them as Santana does by herself.

She wonders how hard it must be for Brittany to hate the love of her life, even as Brittany must sympathize with her. An impossible position, if there ever was one. The thought resonates with Quinn to an insufferable degree; it refuses to leave her mind as she observes them both wiling away in misery.

She gets up from her seat at the otherwise unattended table, a stain of mashed-together colors left there, and then navigates through the masses of her staring peers. Exiting the cafeteria has never felt like such a breath of relief before, even if she has nowhere else to be.

She makes her way to the nearest bathroom, her entry sending everyone else running out and leaving her in solitude as she rinses off her glasses in the sink. She takes a few wet paper towels to her head to wipe away the colorful corn syrup that remains there, but they keep coming off with a red too dark for any flavor; it's her blood, still dribbling out pathetically from the left side of her face. Her dead eye is a disaster from all the blood that has oozed into it, which went unnoticed due to her inability to feel anything there anymore.

She can't afford some truly awful condition, so she heads to the nurse's office to have her eye taken care of. But the station is already occupied when she gets there, by those whom she dearly wishes not to see.

Mr. Schuester gets up from his seat when he sees her. The others follow suit: Mercedes, Blaine, Kurt, Finn, Mike, and Tina. She half expects Artie to rise from his chair as well, as ridiculous the notion is. There are varying degrees of disbelief as to the state of Quinn, but mostly gasps. She has heard more gasps today than she can ever remember hearing before.

Mr. Schuester shepherds her to a seat and then hurries off, no doubt to attract the nurse's attention after seeing Quinn's face. The others all surround her and ask various stupid questions: does she need anything (the nurse, or else she wouldn't be there), is she alright (one only has to look at her to see she is not), and if they can do anything (get the nurse, which Mr. Schuester already is, making it even more of a redundant question than it already was).

She doesn't answer any of their questions; she doesn't speak, just observes. She notes half of them are sporting bruises and scrapes, while the other half seems to be there for support, or possibly to reprimand.

It is the obvious result of some dispute Glee club has had. It is too unlikely for it to have just happened to coincide with all the events of today, but she cannot say as to what exactly prompted the apparent fight. A defense of her honor or attempt for retaliation seems far-fetched – there is no one to take revenge on besides Santana and the boy who Slushee'd her in the first place, and both have already been handled with varying degrees of hospitalization. Perhaps the events just sparked a few comments about Glee club and the mental state of their members, and the already on-edge Gleeks were happy to escalate the dispute.

Whatever the cause, any doubt to it having been a fight are wiped away when she sees several jocks come out along with the harried nurse. The nurse takes one look at Quinn and gasps (of course), and then Quinn is being ushered around more. The others follow her as she is taken in and cleaned off. More stitches are applied to her face, but she is beyond the point of caring.

They are talking around her as is so often done, discussing what to do about her clothes. They ask if they should go grab some more, but then Kurt notes that Quinn has been wearing the same clothes for the entire semester. This causes their discussion to crash to a halt, and creates more sympathetic looks for which to burn through her with.

Tina volunteers to go and get some clothes for her, and Mr. Schuester doesn't see fit to remind her that it's still the middle of the school day. He never was a very good teacher.

They seem to be at a loss for words after Tina takes her leave. But it doesn't take long for the dreaded moment to arrive, in which Mr. Schuester starts talking about Glee club, and how it might be good for Quinn. The statement is so ridiculous that Quinn cannot help but turn and stare at him with incredulity. He wilts briefly, but then seems to resolve himself. The others pipe in and add their recommendations, all talking about how good it would be for her.

She ignores them. She doubts that she will be able to recall a single word of what they have said, at least until Mercedes hesitantly mentions that Finn is now the sole captain of Glee club.

That causes Quinn to sit up. The others have no doubt as to what caught Quinn's attention, so they begin talking about her. About how she quit at the start of the semester.

Their voices begin to fade away after that, whether from the force of her stare or the dull ringing in her ears, she does not know. They realize their attempts are futile after some time, and they begin their departure once Tina arrives with a batch of newly bought clothes. The clothes have been carefully chosen to her size and taste, though such things matter little to her now. It's all more charity.

She is given leave from the nurse's office, and the rest of that long day passes by in a blur. Her notes are sparse, and she is sure she has missed relevant information from her classes, but she will deal with that later. Now, her attention is demanded by achingly familiar roads.

She sits in her car for twenty minutes before finally walking up to the front door. She rings the bell, struck with the memory of the key she used to have.

The door opens, and it all aches more at the sight of Hiram's face. His eyes widen, and he reaches out, like he wants to hug her, but then he stops himself. "Quinn," he says, her name the most painful thing that could have possibly come from his lips.

All the mental preparation she has built is up is destroyed immediately. She can't speak, can't even breathe, so she just looks to the stairs behind him instead. He understands, because he has always understood her, and he steps aside and allows her in. She brushes past him and rushes up the stairs, her fingernails digging into her palms. She cannot stay in this house for one more second. Not this house.

She stops in front of a door, but it is not the door she is looking for. It is a terrible door that holds so many terrible things behind it, but she can't help but lay a hand against the wood. It is shut tightly, and she thanks God for sparing her any further temptation. As it is, she can barely resist the urge to reach for the doorknob and be bathed in all the pain.

But then there's a noise from behind the door.

Quinn's heart leaps up into her throat, and every agonizing memory is gathering and that stupid, stupid hope is growing when she knows it's not true, when she knows what she'll find behind that door, but she can't stop praying, and every prayer is killing her. Her mind and heart are at war with each other, but she can't wait a second longer or else she'll break even more than she already has, and she will never be able to put herself back together again.

She grasps the doorknob and she imagines choking, twists it and imagines broken necks, and she can't hold out any longer, and so she imagines twisting metal and throws the door open.

What she sees inside kills her hope, and she has never been more thankful for death.

It is Rachel is sitting there. Only Rachel. She is a huddle on the ground, clutching a soft, pink blanket to her chest. It is wet with tears, and Quinn wishes that she will be able to forget that Rachel sobs into it just as Quinn had before, even though she knows she will not.

Rachel is staring at her, her eyes wide and wet with tears and wonder. Quinn stares back with the most focus she has ever used in her life, because she knows that she cannot tear her gaze away from Rachel for a single moment; she cannot allow herself to see all the scars that already lie on the periphery of her vision.

"You quit Glee club," Quinn says. Accuses.

Confusion snaps on to Rachel's face. Of all the things Quinn could say to her after all this time, she has no doubt that Rachel was not expecting that.

Rachel seems to be unable to speak, so she just nods, shakily. She remains on the floor, her legs collapsed beneath her, the blanket held tightly to her chest, like she wished she could absorb it into her and hold it within her heart forever. Quinn knows the feeling well.

"Have you sung at all?" Quinn asks. Demands.

Rachel is recoiling, though neither knows why. Neither knows why the bitter indignation has filled Quinn's voice. So Rachel just shakes her head, no. She looks terrified. She has been given a test, maybe the most important one of her life, and she is failing it in every way that counts.

Quinn's teeth are gritting against one another, and her voice is a low hiss when speaks again. "You can't quit," she spits out. "You can't stop. You can't give up. You don't get to do that."

Rachel is crying again; fat tears streaming off her eyes, snot pouring out of her nose, choked sounds gurgling in her throat. It's pathetic and Quinn hates it so much in so many ways. But Rachel is still shaking her head. She's shaking her head, that stupid, fucking—

"I-I can't," Rachel says, words forced out between loud breaths. "I c-can't sing anymore, not when—"

She breaks off into another sob, this one louder than before. Hiram must be hearing this; it's impossible not to. Why isn't he here? Why hasn't he shown Rachel how moronic she is being? Why hasn't LeRoy?

"It doesn't matter," Quinn growls. "We move on. We have to. We fucking deal with it."

"I can't!" Rachel cries. "Do you know what I started ev-every performance with? Every single time I sang, I always started it with a dedication to—"

"I KNOW!" Quinn screams at her, because she knows that every video, every memory of every performance is another scar for that exact reason. "I was there! Dammit, Rachel, I know, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything. We move on."

"And you've moved on!?" Rachel screams back, scrambling to her feet, but keeping that god damn blanket in her hand the whole time. "You're a husk! How can you tell me to move on when you go through every day looking like you wish you were dead!?"

Quinn wants to hurt her. She wants to slap her and hit her and tell her that it doesn't matter if she's a husk, at least she's doing something, at least she only looks dead, at least she isn't Rachel, at least she hasn't given up on everything, at least she's going to do something. But what she does instead is even worse.

She looks away from Rachel. And she sees.

She sees dressers and changing tables and picture frames with smiles and birthday cards and little stuffed bears and little stuffed dogs and a jumper and rattles and binkies and bags of diapers and a rocking chair and a night light and a crib and—

She's sobbing. She's gone all this time without it, but now she is sobbing and she can't stop. She is holding her head and squeezing it and hoping that she'll add enough on to her concussion that she'll just stop. Her glasses have fallen to the floor and are crushed under her knees as she collapses, and her nails are digging into her freshly stitched up gash and tearing the blood out—

And Rachel is there, and Rachel is holding her and sobbing with her, and they both feel that missing piece of that soul, will always feel it no matter what.

They are both broken.

Chapter Text

Quinn wakes up on the floor.

It is the morning, and she is lying up against the wall in a pile, with Rachel curled into her side. The blanket Rachel was using is now stretched over the both of them, barely covering their shoulders even when they are huddled so close.

The skin around the gash on Quinn's face feels taut and clean; evidently, one of Rachel's parents had taken care of it during the night, cleaning it up and stitching it back together for the umpteenth time. She can feel tracks of tears staining her face, and she sees that Rachel's face is likewise marred.

She reaches a hand up and is wiping away the evidence of Rachel's sorrows before she even realizes what she is doing: it is a habitual action, wrung out from the familiar sky-blue walls and toys that surround her, and yet she cannot find it in herself to stop until her work is done. She does not stop until every last line on Rachel's still beautiful face is gently rubbed away; then Quinn is only one still scarred.

The action disturbs Rachel and stirs her out of her slumber; gentle as Quinn may be, Rachel is always awoken by her touch. ("Why do I always end up waking you up?" Quinn had asked her once. Rachel had smiled and said, "Because I can't sleep knowing I could be spending time with you.") Rachel is smiling just the tiniest bit as she awakens, no doubt caught in an illusion of being back in their happier days; but then Rachel catches sight of Quinn's face, and the scar is enough to release her back into awful reality.

Rachel opens her mouth, perhaps for a simple greeting or a not-so simple question, but she closes it again after a moment. They are left in silence then, staring into each other's eyes as they so often did every morning, but now both are wondering how the world went so wrong.

Quinn is the first to move: she slowly drags herself away from Rachel and separates them once again. Rachel is left clutching the blanket to her chest, watching Quinn as she gets to her feet. Quinn bends down to pick up her glasses off the floor, but she finds they are broken, fittingly enough: the glass meant for her good eye cracked in half.

"There's a spare in the bedroom," Rachel says, so quiet that Quinn might have missed it even in the dead silence of the room. Quinn nods, because of course Rachel would have kept a spare pair of glasses for her despite Quinn never even having worn her primary pair back then. Quinn doesn't move, however; neither does Rachel. They are both afraid of what will happen when either one walks out the door and leaves this sacred, accursed room.

"Do you want some breakfast?" Rachel asks, extending the terms of their engagement. Quinn cannot refuse, not here, but then sanctuary will be granted to the rest of the house with the guise of Quinn attending a simple meal. It is an almost devilish tactic, and Quinn would hate Rachel for using it if not for the fact that Rachel probably had no idea what she was doing and was only genuinely asking. So she just nods again.

Rachel climbs to her feet, and the two of them leave the painful room with no ceremony besides a quietly firm shutting of the door when they are out. Rachel takes the stairs down to the kitchen, while Quinn makes her way to their bedroom.

She finds it exactly the same as it was when she walks in. It is still distinctly Rachel, as Quinn had never wanted to change, but there are still the newer traces of Quinn scattered around: they range from books Rachel never would have read (and probably still had not), to clothes and various talismans that exude a strange mix of carelessness in how they are thrown about the room, and reverence in how they have been kept undisturbed in the variously obstructive positions.

Quinn debates grabbing some of her items to take with her, but she finds the thought of robbing Rachel of these memories too heartless for even her; therefore, she only rifles around in the drawers until she finds the spare glasses, and then she quickly leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.

She manages to be surprised when she descends the stairs and smells bacon in the air. It is a plea desperate enough to the point of being pathetic, and yet Quinn still finds tears in her eyes as her suspicions are confirmed by the sight of Rachel staring down at the sizzling pan with so much concentration and determination that it almost masks the revulsion. Those tears are still there when Rachel carefully transports the bacon to a plate and then looks up to find Quinn standing there in the doorway. Guilt fills Rachel's face, like she has been caught in some terrible act. She looks torn between wanting to go over and comfort Quinn, and wanting to offer some apology or excuse for what she has done; but they both know either option to be worthless, so Rachel only sets the plate down in Quinn's usual spot and then busies herself making her own breakfast.

Quinn takes her seat and sets about nibbling on the bacon. Truthfully, the bacon is right up there in quality with LeRoy's best (and far above Rachel's standard for any food she makes), but Quinn finds her appetite lacking at the moment. After all the work and disregard for her own morals Rachel has gone through, Quinn finds herself unable to get through a single piece.

Quinn is crying again: quiet sniffles escaping her. It is only a second before Rachel is sitting there beside her, rubbing a hand up and down Quinn's back. "I'm sorry," Quinn says. "I… I can't finish the… I'm sorry."

Rachel shakes her head. "It's fine, Quinn," she says. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

It's not fine; nothing is. But Quinn lets Rachel lie to her, nods, if only to stem the tears. She has gone so long without crying, but everything about this place stings and burns worse than the scars on her body ever have.

"I should go," Quinn says.

Rachel flinches, but her hand continues its comforting ministrations: it has traveled lower, rubbing circles along her lower back just as it had when Rachel would find Quinn bent over a toilet. "Do you need anything? Clothes?" Rachel asks, since anything else she could say ("You don't have to." "Please stay.") would be wasted. Quinn nods her head, unable to raise her gaze from the uneaten bacon and unwilling to see Rachel's crumbling expression.

Rachel leaves to gather the clothes, leaving Quinn sitting there alone. She knows Hiram and LeRoy have both left for work by now; in fact, she and Rachel are probably late for school. (A glance at the clock confirms this.)

Rachel returns, arms weighed down by a hefty duffel bag, to find Quinn standing beside the front door. She hands Quinn the bag, then follows her outside. She stops when she sees Quinn's car.

The tiniest "oh" escapes Rachel when she sees the left side of the red beetle. Quinn is numb to the sight by now, but the realization that this is Rachel's first time seeing the destroyed state of the car is enough to make her stop as well. They stand there, Quinn watching as Rachel takes in every scrape and dent that decorates the back half of the car. Rachel's eyes are not watery, but rather completely dry: dead.

Eventually, she begins to walk again. She deposits the duffel bag in the trunk of the car as Quinn starts it up, then walks back around to driver's side. Her eyes pause on the blanket in the backseat, but then they forcibly snap away and on to Quinn. "I'll see you at school?" she asks.

"I thought you were suspended," Quinn notes.

Rachel shakes her head. "No, just detention. I just… I couldn't stay there yesterday, after everything."

Of course. Still too much sympathy for Quinn to ever punish those who fight for her. She can't find the same level of anger she previously had at the thought, however.

Quinn looks at Rachel for a long time; she examines her hopeless expression, worn like she already knows Quinn's answer, but couldn't resist asking anyway. It is a too ugly a scar for right now, so she moves her gaze away and lets it wander. It lands on Rachel's car. It is dirty, filthy almost, in an obvious state of disuse. She wonders if Rachel has been taking the bus to school. She always used to drive.

"Are you going to rejoin Glee?" Quinn asks, not looking at her.

There is silence for a long time, only filled by the quiet rumble of the engine, before Rachel speaks. "Will you?"

"If you will," Quinn says without hesitation. She doesn't care, so long as Rachel returns to her life. Whatever Quinn has to do in exchange is trivial.

"...Okay."

Quinn nods, then shifts the car into gear; but Rachel doesn't step back. Quinn finally turns to look at Rachel, whose arms are wrapped around herself, and who looks so small in that moment.

"I'll see you at school," Quinn says, just like before. Except there are no smiles now, only tears in Rachel's eyes.

But there's also hope, for the first time Quinn can remember looking back at her in months.

Chapter Text

Quinn is expecting the gasps this time when Rachel and she enter the music room.

Mr. Schuester's whole face lights up at the sight of them, along with those of everybody else there; even Santana. It is an almost alarming display, especially considering neither Rachel nor she are wearing any level of enthusiasm themselves. Mr. Schuester is quick to approach them and welcome them back, telling them how glad he is to see both of them again. Neither say anything to this: Quinn stares blankly off to the side, and Rachel keeps her head lowered the whole time. The only response is garnered by Mr. Schuester's tentative offer of reinstating Rachel as co-captain, to which Rachel mutters something about not being up to it at the moment. He accepts this easily enough and tells them once again how happy he is to see them before returning to the center of the room.

Quinn is quick to claim the most secluded chair: back in the corner, close to the door. Rachel hesitates before following up and taking a seat two over from Quinn, leaving a comfortable amount of distance between them, but also the others.

The others are watching them: Finn, still not sitting in the front despite now being the solo captain; Santana, secluded (or perhaps isolated would be the better term) in the opposite corner; Brittany, smiling at the both of them brightly; and the others, wearing various other smiles which they must think comforting. The two of them ignore them in their own ways: Quinn digs out her books and begins on her homework, while Rachel just keeps her eyes locked down on her twisting hands in her lap. The others don't seem offended by this; Quinn wonders if they think themselves considerate for the basic decency.

Mr. Schuester is bright and excited as he drags out the whiteboard, though limited just enough in his enthusiasm so as to remain respectable. He yammers on for a minute, gesticulating broadly as he is so prone to do, and then he is writing the word of the week down.

"Reintegration," he says after penning down the word on the board. He smiles at Rachel and Quinn over in their corner, who both return it with their continued obvious indifference. "I don't want either of you to worry, alright? We're not going to rush you into anything you're not ready for," he pauses, cringing, "but we do want you to know that we're here to support you in any way that we can. Are there any songs in particular that either of you'd like to hear?" he asks hopefully. Rachel shakes her head after a moment, Quinn ignoring him altogether.

Their lack of enthusiasm still doesn't seem to affect his, however. He is quick to start writing up a list of songs, asking for Finn and the rest of the club to add their own suggestions. They talk about songs that fit the situation, and they talk about songs that Rachel and Quinn seemed to like before: Broadway hits and alternative music nobody ever expected Quinn to like. (Another testament to how "close" they all were to her.) They are talking around Rachel and Quinn, just like the rest of the school does, though Quinn cannot blame them in this scenario; neither of the pair are up for conversation.

Eventually they decide on a selection, and thus begins the serenade of sympathy for the both of them. As she has always found with Glee club, the renditions are, for the most part, awful. There is a special note to the lack of quality this time; the songs chosen are songs that the two of them had seemed to enjoy, but they are not songs that the rest of the club are familiar with, or suited towards.

Broadway hits are sung, confirming that none of them realize that Rachel is a far better singer than any of them, or even that their vocal ranges are far less suited for the songs than Rachel's. Then, they are performing alternative music that none of them had even heard of when Quinn had been unable to escape choosing a song, and which they have obviously never heard of since. The vast layers of depth and complexity that are loss with these covers are obvious to Quinn, but they seem to think themselves a great performance.

"Now I know how hipsters feel," Quinn mutters without glancing up from her textbooks. The comment slips off her tongue without her even thinking about it, but then Rachel is stifling a snort next to her, and they are suddenly transported back to that happy place in the past, where they could laugh and make fun of each other and smile—

But now there is an empty chair between them, and it is enough of a scar to devour whatever happiness they have found. No, it does more than that; it becomes a scar of guilt as well, condemning them for daring to laugh, daring to forget.

The performance has stopped, because Rachel is crying into her hands and Quinn is shoving everything into her bag, and then they are out the door; away from the so-called friends who stole their guilt away from them for even the briefest of moments, and who now call after them.

Quinn is turning the ignition on the car as Rachel runs past and on the way to her home. Tears seep from Rachel, but Quinn only feels self-loathing wrapping around her, only recoils from the monster she sees in the mirror. They go their separate ways, even if they are stuck on the same path.

Quinn doesn't sleep that night. She can't bring herself to even touch the blanket. She has no doubt in her mind that Rachel is punishing herself in the exact same way.

Tomorrow, Rachel walks up alongside her as they walk through the halls. "I can't go again today," Rachel says. "I just… I can't."

Quinn nods, but she adds, "Monday. We'll go Monday."

Quinn manages to avoid most of Glee throughout the day, only catching glances from a few before she slips away. She spots Rachel in the parking lot as she gets into the car at the end of the day, and she notes that Rachel must have walked all the way home yesterday; there was no bus at that time. She wonders if she she should have given Rachel a lift, but then the thought of her and Rachel in a car together again is too painful to bear, so she dismisses it.

She heads to Puck's that night. She doesn't have a cell phone anymore (not that she ever really needed one with the vast number of friends she had to call), so she wants to make sure she hasn't missed out on any pool jobs during Puck's suspension. Puck's sister answers the door again, but she is able to contain her shock at the sight of Quinn this time. She tells Quinn that Puck is out, but adds that Quinn can stay and wait for him to come back. Her words are distinctly lacking in enthusiasm, so Quinn declines, and Puck's sister accepts this with barely-concealed relief, then goes back to her car and waits.

The dark of night is bearing down on her by the time Puck's car pulls up next to hers and makes her look up from her textbooks. It is too dark to see details, but there is a shimmer to his knuckles that Quinn knows must be blood. She says nothing about his own method of coping, only asks for an update on work. He tells her to come back tomorrow night, same time as usual, and then escapes the terrible state of the outside world and returns to his home. (That it could be the other way around is something that does not occur to Quinn until she has returned to the lonely road she now calls her home.)

It is the weekend again, so she sleeps in her car until it is time for work. She does not leave her car when she arrives, only waits next to Puck's until he pokes his head out and sees her there. If he is troubled by her refusal to enter his home any more, he does not show it as he starts up his own car and leads her to their next site: another house with a white picket fence and a family's laughter filling its rooms.

Everything is going as well as to be expected, with complete silence, until the mother of the house comes out with a tray of lemonades. Thankfully, she has already set the tray down before she catches sight of Quinn, so her shock does not result in broken glass around the pool. It does, however, attract the attention of her daughter inside.

A little girl, only a few years old, with dark brown hair.

Puck freezes when he sees her. His eyes are locked on to her with an intensity that does not go unnoticed by either mother or child, and his fists are clenched at his side. Quinn continues her work stubbornly, forcefully as she refuses to look over any at the girl any more. The mother is asking if they are okay, and quickly determining that they're not, going by their lack of response. She gives up on communicating with them, and instead mutters a hasty invitation to the lemonade before ushering her daughter back inside with her and locking the door behind them.

Puck is still unmoving. He remains that way throughout the rest of the clean, leaving Quinn to handle it by herself. It ends up taking the same amount of time as usual, either way; Quinn is focused in her efforts of distracting herself. She gathers the equipment up by herself as Puck remains staring at the sliding glass doors, which now have the blinds closed in front of them. It is as she is grabbing the last bit of their things that she stops in front of him.

"We're leaving," she says. Puck nods his head, but his eyes don't waver, not even as she takes him by the hand and leads him away, not until she has led him back to his car. He looks at her then, with watery eyes; like he expects her to have something to say.

He's still waiting when she drives away; waiting for her to do something to make it better. They both are.

On Sunday, she doesn't leave her car.

Chapter Text

Quinn wakes from the sound of screaming.

They are not true screams, only phantoms: memories of a day she'd do anything to forget. Her dreams have been filled with them before, but she had thought them locked away. Now they creep back into her nights. She doesn't want to think of what prompted their return, for that path only leads to more of them, but they are slowly picking away at her shell, and she is at a loss of what to do.

The numbness is being chipped away, bit by bit. Every day, her journey through the halls of her school and the streets of her town affects her a little more. The shroud is being eaten away by the maggots that lurk in her mind, and so the scars grow ever starker to her eye.

She goes to Glee with Rachel, and she eats lunch with Puck, but she does not participate in these activities, only attends them. Every time, there is something missing, and she knows exactly what it is. The only thing that remains the same is schoolwork, as monotonous and unfulfilling as it ever was; a banal habit which frees her from the burden of thinking.

She attempts to make plans, but the future is dark to her. She cannot imagine a single day in advance, even though the idea is all that has kept her going. College is unthinkable, a career is unthinkable, even leaving to go anywhere else is unthinkable. Her future is as clear to her as these past few months, filled only with numbness because she cannot bear the pain. That is her existence.

And yet she sees the others recovering. Puck forces himself forward, continuing on through every day, and she slowly begins to see a return to his old form. His mannerisms are not so bold, his words not so provocative, but he is regaining what is left of his soul. He has come to same realization as Quinn, that nothing is ever going to get better, but he is content to live lower than he did before.

Rachel has not yet sung, but she now speaks in Glee once again, and her seat is always moving closer to where it was before. (That it is further from Quinn is something she tries not to regret.) She participates in their discussions, and Quinn has seen her walking down the halls with them, talking. She marches on as Quinn has told her to, but the sight is bitter to Quinn; she never gave credence to the thought that Rachel would outpace her.

By now, the inhabitants of McKinley High have learned better than to expect a response from Quinn. Whatever resurgence that was sparked has long since burnt out. Even Rachel and Puck do not spare much effort on her any more, instead sticking only to their habitual activities together. Those minuscule moments are all that Quinn has left of contact.

She watches them all move on, but try as she might, she cannot follow.

Days pass, then weeks. Months follow.

It is graduation, and she has not applied to a single college. She has done nothing. Valedictorian passes by her, instead going to Mike Chang. She cannot muster up any indignation at this, instead only feeling gratitude that she will not have to go up on the podium. It is better for all of them, that these students will go through this day without having to be reminded of the ugly scar that is Quinn Fabray.

That's all that she is now. A scar. Nothing good will come from her.

She does not attend graduation. Instead, she goes for a drive. She makes three stops: The first is at a local store, where she purchases one item. The second is a lonely intersection with a stop sign sitting atop a dented pole. The third is the cemetery.

She takes the small, pink blanket with her when she leaves the car, along with her wallet and her recent purchase. She brings them to a grave, which is surrounded with a huge mass of flowers. Many of the flowers are fresh, but they are in vases that show the wear of the time.

On the tombstone, her daughter's name stares back at her.

The first step is to gingerly move the vases and flowers about to make room at the foot of the slab of stone. She does not wish to disturb any of the testaments to her beautiful little girl.

She knows the second step will be the most painful, but pain is a constant companion to her already. She unfurls her wallet and carefully removes a single picture. It is of the four of them in her daughter's room: Puck leaning in from the side of the frame, with Quinn and Rachel sitting together on the floor. In front of them, a freshly one-year-old girl with dark hair and the most dazzling smile Quinn has ever seen is playing with her new toys. The four of them are all wearing party hats, with matching expressions of pure happiness.

She sits down in front of the tombstone and leans the picture up against it. She takes her blanket and wraps it around her shoulders, then lays down on the ground, staring at the picture.

It the last picture ever taken of Beth; the picture for which Quinn's beautiful baby girl died.

Rachel had insisted on going to a professional boutique for developing photographs because she thought the picture was too perfect not to. Quinn had agreed. Quinn drove them there, but Beth started being fussy once they got in the store, so Quinn let Rachel drive them back so that she could stay in the back seat with Beth. Beth always liked being held, so Quinn took her out of the car seat to bounce her in her lap. Beth always liked Rachel's singing, so Rachel sung a lullaby to calm her down.

Beth was laughing when her neck was broken.

Quinn can't remember the sound anymore.

It is that realization that makes the last step so easy.

Quinn passes out to the familiar stench of blood, the sight of her baby's smiling face, and the sound of screaming.

Chapter Text

Quinn wakes to the steady beep of a heart monitor.

White walls surround her, reflecting fluorescent lights. The blinds are opened, allowing her to see the darkness of the outside world, but the window is closed and locked.

Her wrists are bandaged, and her arms and legs tied down to the bed. The bustle of the hospital is barely audible through the closed door: random chatter, along with the scrapes of wheelchairs and crutches against the floor.

There is a stand next to her bed, various flowers sitting atop it. Two chairs sit next to her bed. Rachel is curled up in one of them, asleep, but whimpering. Tears are flowing from her tightly shut eyes, and her hands are curling her graduation robes, obviously seeking something else.

Quinn goes back to sleep.

Rachel is still there when Quinn wakes in the morning. Her bloodshot eyes are wide-open this time, locked on to Quinn's, depriving Quinn from her chance to hide. They hold each other's gaze. Rachel is completely still, her entire body tensed and her jaw clenched. Quinn's chest rises and falls as she resignedly takes in each unwanted breath, her body limp.

They don't speak.

There's no need for Quinn to ask, nor for Rachel to explain. The second Rachel saw Quinn missing at the graduation ceremony, she went looking in the two places Quinn would never go, because she knew that those were the only places Quinn would be. Quinn wouldn't choose anywhere else to give up at.

Quinn wonders if Rachel is angry at her. Afraid for her? Both, most likely. So often they go hand-in-hand for Rachel. An inescapable pairing.

She doesn't want Rachel to feel that for her. She doesn't want her to suffer for Quinn; she has already done far too much of that. She has been a bearer of Quinn's scar for the past several months. It would have been better to erase herself and ease Rachel's pain.

And yet Rachel refuses to see this.

It as though that Rachel had heard Quinn's thoughts, for she rises to her feet all of a sudden. Her red eyes are hard as they bore into Quinn. Her words are cropped and short, empty yet certain. "If you go, I go."

Quinn does not have time to understand what has been said before Rachel has flown out of the room. It is only as the sound of Rachel's fierce steps begin to fade that Quinn slumps back against her pillows.

She realizes that Rachel has trapped her in life. Inescapably.

It is, as she is later told by the nurse, the second day since her hospitalization. There were a fair deal of visitors yesterday, or so the nurse happily tells her; all dressed in their graduation garb. A hispanic girl had to be dragged away, her screams and sobs too unruly for the wing. A jewish boy, tall with a shaved head, left an imprint of his fist in the wall. He too had been taken away, but he was too despondent to fight back. The nurse's retelling had loss some of its joy at this point.

Visitors come. Brittany is first to arrive, puffy red eyes and all; she deposits a stuffed duck next to Quinn. Santana next, who asks Quinn how she could do this; Quinn has the nurses take her away. Puck, who stares at her for several minutes before shaking his head and walking back out.

Her parents do not visit, but Quinn receives a card in their name; it is the most contact she has had with them since the day that Beth was born and she told them that no, she wouldn't be coming back to her parents' house, she would be going to Berry household, because she was in love with their daughter.

Rachel does not return that day, but Quinn is visited by a Berry. Hiram walks into the room with a sadness he tries desperately to hide with a smile, dressed in his doctor's coat. He sits at the side of Quinn's bed, takes hold of her hand, and tells her "hello."

She debates telling him of Rachel's declaration, but he is a man who knows his daughter. He knows her mind. He knows that he very nearly lost her as completely as he almost lost Quinn.

Quinn realizes then the pain she has caused Hiram and LeRoy, and the pain they were so barely spared. It is that thought, of causing pain to the two only people who have given her nothing but care, to the only parents she has ever had, that confirms in her mind how truly awful of an blight she is to them all.

But she can't save them from herself anymore. Rachel has cursed them all with that. She has cursed the world with the scar of Quinn.

She has cursed the world with two funerals, instead of a single body shoved into the ground.

Chapter Text

Hiram and LeRoy take Quinn in, just as they did before.

Quinn does not have a choice in the matter, as they politely but firmly inform her. There is no chance of them leaving her on her own after what she has just attempted. It is an unnecessary effort now that Rachel has given Quinn her ultimatum; Quinn will never do anything to risk Rachel's health, even if it means continuing to bear the weight of life.

Even numb as she is, she knows she cannot explain this to the Berry men; that is knowledge she will never confirm for them, as much as they assume. She does not wish to see anyone's burden added to. That is why she did what she did, after all.

Her car is transported to one of their friends, or so they tell her. They will not sell it, repair it, or touch it in any way, but they feel themselves unable to afford her the chance to live in it once again; another deprivation of escape for her, another avenue closed. Rachel has forced her to live, and now her fathers force her to spend that life in the mausoleum of their home.

She does not know how she will be able to survive around such heavy scars, with her daughter's room always down the hall from the guest room where she has not slept since she was pregnant, nor does she know how she will be able to eat breakfast at the table where she fed her baby girl, complete with Rachel providing helicopter noises. One such meal has already been ruined: a perfect plate of bacon made by the world's worst chef and staunchest vegan.

She does not know how she will bare to be in the same house as Rachel and not hate her for trapping Quinn there. That is what frightens her the most: that she will grow to resent Rachel, hate her for what she has done, for not letting their sorry story finally end. She cannot hate Rachel, not again, or else all that is left of her life will crumple up and burn and leave her an abyssal monster who will cause so much more pain than she has ever fathomed. Rachel is all that is keeping her numb instead of cruel; she is the last bit of light that fills where her soul used to be.

She cannot risk losing that light, no matter what the cost. Images have played out in her head from a world in which such happens, tempting her with hideous thoughts she will never forgive herself for thinking, and Rachel is all that staves them off. She cannot disappoint Rachel. She cannot hurt her. So long as she holds on to that, she can hold on to what is left of her sanity.

She can survive the days and weeks until Rachel leaves to NYADA. She can live under the same roof as her light without getting too close and burning up. After all, she has survived this long, hasn't she?

Sometimes she wonders.

They bring her to their home before the end of the week, when she is discharged with a clean bill of health. Her arms are wrapped in bandages, but the doctors tell her she will be left with no permanent damage but some scars.

Hiram helps her in while LeRoy finishes up some 'preparations,' or suicide-proofs the house. Rachel is silent at her side, completely devoid of any happiness or joy, or any other emotion. She is numb, as Quinn has been. She has trapped herself in Quinn's life as well, and it is one more regret for Quinn that Rachel would suffer on her behalf.

Rachel shows her to the guest bedroom where she will be staying, just as she did on that day so long ago: after she had gone up to Quinn's car one night and begged her to come live with her. But no, it is different this time. There is no barely-concealed excitement and nervousness in Rachel as she jabbers on about how great everything will be and how there's nothing to worry about, they'll handle everything.

In a way, Beth had always linked them together. It is no surprise then that the connection would be dead. But would Rachel threaten her own life for the sake of a girl with whom she held nothing with? Honestly, Quinn could see such a capacity for generosity in Rachel. (That she finds herself hoping that that is not the case for their situation is something she cannot even admit to herself.)

Rachel opens the door for her to the guest room, and Quinn enters to find all her things there. It is uncomfortable in a way, seeing them there when she knows that they should be in Rachel's room, what used to be their room. She knows for a fact that the sweater she sees in the closet was shared between the two of them frequently, and yet there it is. Hers then, when it is as much Rachel's.

She looks over to see Rachel watching her as she holds up the sleeve of the sweater. Rachel's eyes are focused and yet unfocused; they see the sweater, but more than that they see the memories behind it. Quinn sees it transforming into a scar before her very eyes, when before it had been the source of a happier memory.

Rachel tears her gaze away and looks to her feet instead. Her hand is grasped tightly around the doorknob. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. She shakes her head and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

Leaving Quinn trapped again.

Chapter Text

Quinn begins to feel as though she is wearing a ditch in the ground where she walks.

It has only been a week, yet she can see the path she walks each and every day as though it is the trail of some malignant force, rotting through whatever it touches. She is a swarm of locusts, devouring and devouring and never giving back.

The Berry men have signed her up for therapy, as is customary for those like her, and they take turns driving her there twice a week. Anti-depressants have also been prescribed, but she refuses to take them despite the protests of Hiram and LeRoy. She won't allow pills to wipe away her sorrow for her baby girl; she won't allow them to fill in the spot in her heart where Beth used to be.

The therapy is treated with similar disdain. She does not want to 'move on.' She does not want to forget. It is impossible either way, so she finds no point in discussing it. And she doesn't. She sits there in the office and stares out the window, tuning out the therapist's words as she observes the outside world.

The world will move on, if it hasn't already. Rachel and Puck have moved on, after all. She must remain there with Beth, even if only as a scar. She is a testament to her daughter, and she will remain one for however long Rachel forces her to.

Rachel will move on from Quinn, of course. It is only a matter of time before she is swept away as Beth was, and then Quinn will be free to join her daughter. She would have called Beth their daughter once upon a time, hers and Rachel's and maybe even Puck's, but no longer. Beth is hers alone now.

Work with Puck is also included along with her rut, as much as she wishes to avoid him. She possesses no other options, however. The scar on her face may have faded, but the scars on her wrists are the newest deterrent for her occupational prospects. One more snare, tying her down.

Hiram and LeRoy handle contacting Puck, checking to see when the next pool cleaning is. She imagines some arguments took place due to Puck not wanting to see her face again, but it ends with both of them at another pool. They don't talk to each other. Puck can barely stand to look at her. She can't find it in herself to care.

She is not allowed to drive anywhere by herself, instead being taken by Hiram or LeRoy. A similar situation exists for Rachel, but that is a matter of her avoiding behind the wheel ever again. Between the two of them, the Berry men are constantly shuttling them back and forth.

Rachel doesn't speak to her; instead, she is often holed up in her room, 'making plans' and preparing for NYADA. She has turned herself into a prisoner in her own home. Quinn supposes that it is only fitting that they are both trapped in their own ways. If only Rachel could finally set them both free.

The time will come eventually when she does. If nothing else, Quinn will miss Rachel when she gives up on Quinn; when Rachel is up on Broadway and has enough to live for that Quinn's death will only make a trifling note in her memoirs. Until then, Quinn can miss Rachel while they live down the hall from one another. She can miss the Rachel that kissed her and told her that everything would be okay, because that Rachel is long-since dead.

But Quinn still holds on to the memory. She will always remember their first kiss, laying together in Rachel's bed as they felt Beth kick against her stomach. She will always remember the way that Rachel held her hair back as Quinn vomited into the toilet in the dead of the night. Even those memories fill her with nostalgia now.

How long until they are twisted into scars in her mind? How long until she loses whatever wisps of happiness that still drift through her thoughts? She looks at the sweater hanging in her closet and cannot find the smallest twinge of joy in it, nor even the faintest memory of the feeling. It is only another scar now. This shouldn't surprise her; after all, there is nothing sacred left. Everything is a scar now.

College applications are scars as well, forced on her by the Berry men. They speak to her of how amazing her grades are, and how she could get into any college she wanted to, and all she hears is the names of places her baby girl will never see. But she is dutiful in filling them out. The further she is from Rachel, the easier it will be for Rachel to forget, and the sooner Quinn can be free.

It is a plan Quinn is confident in until Rachel comes into the living room one day and tells them that Quinn will be attending NYU. She gives no explanation or reasoning; she only states this as a fact, and then turns back around.

To the Berry men's surprise, Quinn follows her.

She is so tired of this game Rachel insists on playing. She has indulged her, but she will not allow Rachel to do this; she will not let her drag it out any longer.

Rachel is not in her room. Instead, she is in Quinn's room, holding the sweater in her lap as she sits on the bed. A mourning for them, just as the blanket was a mourning for Beth? The thought hurts Quinn more than she would like to admit.

"Why are you doing this?" Quinn asks, so tired. "This is going to end eventually. Why can't we just… Why can't you just let me go?"

Rachel's hand are clenched into fists around the fabric of the sweater. Her eyes are watery, but she will not let the tears spill over. "Why are you doing this?" she counters Quinn, her own voice so broken.

Quinn sighs, leaning back against the wall. "There's nothing left for me," she says. It is a plain fact, one that must be obvious to Rachel, and yet it causes her to snap her eyes over on to Quinn.

"How can you say that?" Rachel asks. She sounds hurt. And so it is more pain that Quinn has caused her. And yet Rachel thinks Quinn's life worth living.

"Because it's true. She's gone." In a quieter tone, Quinn adds, "You're gone."

Rachel sucks in a breath, and is then shaking her head back and forth. "No. No, Quinn, I'm not… I'm right here. I've always been here, waiting for you, but you're… You've been gone for so long. I don't know what to do anymore."

Rachel picks up the sweater off her lap and gently lays it down beside her, but she makes no move to get up. "I can't lose you, Quinn," she says. "You can't do that to me."

"Haven't I already?" Quinn asks, slowly sliding down the wall to her knees.

"Yes," Rachel concedes. "But you can't come back from… from that. You can come back from this."

"What makes you so sure?" Quinn asks. She genuinely wants to know the answer. Why does Rachel believe in her? What possible reason could she have after this past year? "What makes you believe in me?"

Rachel turns to look over at Quinn, straight at her as though her chestnut eyes do not see the hideous line on Quinn's face or the eye that is staring off in another direction.

"Because I know you'll do anything for me, the same as I'll do anything for you. Because that's what love means."

Chapter Text

It is different after their conversation.

Rachel no longer traps herself in her room. She joins the others at meals, and does not avoid them throughout the day. She speaks again, and no longer seeks refuge outside the walls of her own home.

Most specifically, she speaks to Quinn. Across every day, she speaks to Quinn, if in only small pieces at the least. A simple greeting, a quiet farewell into the night. On some nights, she lingers during these farewells, watching Quinn as they both stand in front of their doors, each separated from the haunted room that hangs in the middle.

It is an ugly scar that divides them.

And yet there are other scars that Quinn sees fade. It is a moment of stunned silence that comes to her when she sees the sweater – their sweater – being worn by Rachel one morning. Rachel meets her gaze then, and Quinn does not know what Rachel finds in her face, but it is enough to spark something in Rachel's: the barest widening of her eyes, and the twinge of a smile.

They are only moments, however, and they pass soon enough. But they are still there, they still happen, and they mean something to Quinn that she cannot put into words; she only knows the words that do not apply, one among them being 'scar.' It is a word which applies to so much nowadays that merely its absence is noteworthy.

The Berry men talk to her of removing more scars. They speak of surgery for her eye, which could allow Quinn to see out of it once more. Truthfully, Quinn barely notices anymore, but the thought of 'repairing' herself is disconcerting. It is her duty to bear these scars, after all; to bear the memory of Beth in any way that she can.

She stops in the living room and looks in the mirror one day to examine her eye, and she is surprised by all that she finds in her reflection. It is a belated surprise to her to notice how long her hair has grown, uncut for months, and also to see so much of it to be her natural shade of auburn, uncolored for just as long. Her skin's waxiness has faded due to the efforts of Puck and the Berry men, and she can no longer see the same sharpness of her bones.

The scar on her face is only that now: a scar, not a festering wound. It has closed up, leaving a dark line across the left side of her now imperfect face, but it does not burn red any longer. She almost regrets its recovery, yet she is not sure why.

She catches Rachel's gaze in the reflection, watching Quinn from the doorway. Quinn examines Rachel in turn, and finds her suspicions confirmed: Rachel bears no scars that can be seen by Quinn's eye, no evidence as to the destruction they have seen and felt.

Despite that, Quinn feels the need to ask, "Do you have any scars?"

When Rachel replies, there is an understanding to her singular word that Quinn did not believe possible. "Yes."

It is enough to convince Quinn that fixing her eye will not fix her. It will not relieve her of the pain of her memories. With that worry eased, she agrees to the surgery.

They describe her rest afterward as Quinn's recovery, but in actuality it is only for her eye. She is left to allow her eye to heal in the hospital at first; it is the third time she has been there since the collision, and it is the third time it has revolved around her baby. She is returned to the Berry house soon enough, another place she has only ever gone because of her daughter.

Rachel stays at Quinn's bedside. She has tasked herself with taking care of Quinn, and so assists her in any manner that is required; it is just as she did before. The enthusiasm and nerves are gone, however; they are replaced by a steady determination, an inability for her to quit. As Quinn sees this, her hopes for Rachel to one day forget her are once again dashed.

Confined even further as she is, Quinn is given ample time to sort through various affairs and discuss her malign 'future' with the Berry household. They tell her that they have managed to secure her enrollment at NYU, and that Quinn and Rachel will be sharing a flat in the city. They tell her that it is owed to her grades, but Quinn wonders how much is owed to sympathy.

Sympathy still follows her even now as she is taken places by the Berry men. Inside stores and out on the streets, there is still sympathy in the eyes of those that looked upon her. She is a scar to this town, and if there is at least one point of gratitude to going to college, it is that it means she will escape their gazes. On the NYU campus, she will only be known as tainted by scars, not as being one herself.

If not by Rachel, she will be forgotten by Lima soon enough. Puck, Santana, and Brittany will move on that last bit when they are no longer being guilted by Quinn's presence and the memories she carries with her. Until then, the sight of Santana walking through the mall will always be marred by the look on her face when she sees Quinn there.

But Santana joins Quinn at the foodcourt table where she is sitting, waiting for the Berry men to finish their conversation with the friends they happened upon in one of the stores.

"You got your eye fixed," Santana says to her. It is not a question, but Quinn nods, though both of her eyes are kept on the tray she is eating from. There is nothing else said. In fact, there is dead silence to the point where it causes Quinn to wonder and look up at Santana.

She sees Santana crying quietly as she watches Quinn, and there is a harsh intake of breath as Quinn's gaze meets hers.

"I'm sorry," Santana says. Her eyes are watery and pleading; an expression that Quinn has only ever seen directed at Brittany. "I'm so fucking sorry. You've got to believe me, Q, I only… That day that asshole Slushee'd you was the first day you looked at anyone the whole semester. I just thought that… that maybe I could get something out of you, you know? I mean, get a reaction. Something. But there was nothing. I didn't do anything except burn up whatever was left of me and Britt."

That catches Quinn's attention more than anything else. She discerned Santana's motive for her assault on her long ago, but the thought of Santana and Brittany breaking apart is almost incomprehensible to her. Theirs is a love that was built to last, no matter what came in the way.

Yet Santana only cries more when Quinn tells her this. She wipes at her eyes and mutters something that sounds like 'god damn hobbit,' and then she is climbing out of her chair.

"You can't give up on her," Quinn tells her as she is turning to walk away. "She'd never give up on you."

Santana's steps falter, and then she is looking at Quinn with some indecipherable mess of emotions. She smiles at Quinn, and Quinn is reminded of a funeral pyre: flames meant to honor the sacrifices of the dead. But Quinn will not let Santana and Brittany be her pyre.

When Quinn and the Berry household have dinner that night, Quinn's hand reaches out to touch Rachel's.

Chapter Text

The day of their departure approaches. Soon, Quinn and Rachel will be leaving to New York. A loft has been set up for them, for which to share, and everything is in order for them to attend the colleges Rachel has chosen for each of them.

For the last few weeks, Rachel determinedly spends time with all the friends she has grown to have over the years at McKinley High. Parties are held in honor of all those who are leaving the desolate wasteland of Lima, and Rachel attends every one. Quinn attends none, but she is no longer apathetic enough to do so without telling Rachel to send her well-wishes to all of their acquaintances.

Absent from the festivities, Quinn takes to studying in preparation for her term. But she cannot muster up the same single-minded focus as she could at the beginning of the semester, and finds herself putting the textbooks down and instead typing on her laptop. Stories, pointless and aimless but stories nonetheless, are stamped on to the screen. She barely knows what she is writing, only leaving a record of her trail of consciousness, but it is relaxing in a way.

She cannot avoid all the goodbyes, however. Her last pool-cleaning with Puck is decidedly average: another household that wishes to maintain the place of fun for their children. When they are done, Quinn and Puck are left staring into the pool, watching their reflections.

Quinn finally allowed the Berry men to bring her in to fix her hair, so it is now chin-length instead of the long mess that it has been for so long. It is still auburn, still wilder than Quinn Fabray would have ever kept it or been allowed to, but it feels familiar in some way. Perhaps of a younger girl. The glasses she have taken to wearing also bear the similarities.

"What do you think she would have looked like when she grew up?" Quinn asks.

Puck is quiet for a very long time, and then he chuckles. "Berry," he says, smiling. "I can't get the idea of her looking just like Rachel out of my head."

For some reason, the image sticks with Quinn as well. It is nonsensical, and yet somehow perfect, and Quinn cannot stop herself from imagining Beth with her hands placed on her hips, stomping a foot on the ground and making unreasonable demands that any of them – Quinn, Rachel, or Puck – would no doubt give into.

The thought is sad, yes, but it is also humorous in a way. It relaxes her, and she finds she cannot stop herself from smiling. Then Puck is laughing and she cannot help but join him, thoughts of Beth putting up a poster of Barbra Streisand in her room too much to bear with stoicism. They cannot stop their laughter, too much pent-up misery and frustration having waited for its release for so long.

Beth dressing up as Elphaba for Halloween, Beth demanding vegan substitutes at each and every restaurant they go to, Beth signing up in PETA and then leaving to form her own organization after discovering how 'egregiously insane' PETA is, Beth celebrating Hanukkah and Christmas alongside each other…

Puck has devolved into hysterics on the poolside chair, and it is all Quinn can to do to make to the table without falling under the weight of her laughter. They are both crying; from happiness or from the grief buried underneath, Quinn does not know. But it feels surprisingly good to let the tears flow.

When they finally get to their cars, stumbling from fits of giggles and eyes red from crying, they hug each other. Puck holds Quinn tight to his chest, and Quinn wraps her arms around Puck and squeezes him. There are no words to describe their feelings, but that is only a testament to the depth of them. There are no words to say to each other to express this, and yet Puck finds it within himself to say, "Bye, baby mama."

And in her giddiness, Quinn replies, "Bye, baby daddy."

Puck laughs so hard that he collapses against the side of his truck.

When Quinn drives away, she smiles at Puck out of the rearview mirror, and she sees him smiling in return.

Quinn is still laughing when she finally gets the door to the Berry house open, and she has barely closed the door before Rachel has come racing down the stairs with wide eyes. Quinn smile quiets, but a smaller, easier one takes its place. The smile she receives in return is almost blinding, watery though it may be.

That night, Quinn and Rachel sleep in their bed.

Chapter Text

Rachel had always wondered about the tradition of each person taking a turn shoveling dirt on to the casket.

It was not a constant wonderment or train of thought that refused to leave her mind, but whenever she attended a funeral, she would always be reminded of that tradition. Why did they do it? Why did everyone want to be a part of burying their loved one?

She didn't realize the answer until Beth's funeral, when she saw Quinn walk away without going near the pile of dirt.

It is that memory that makes Rachel raise the question to Quinn of returning to Beth's grave once again.

She is swallowed by regret at the words the second that Quinn's eyes glaze over, and her expression returns to that which reminds Rachel of days she'd rather forget, days she wonders if Quinn wishes to forget. But Rachel does not rescind the words. She leaves them to hang between the two of them, filling Rachel's room.

There is so little time left now that Rachel cannot rescind the question. Soon the both of them will be leaving to New York, and Rachel knows that neither of them will ever return to this god-forsaken town. Rachel knows she has done so little for Quinn, but she can do this much. She can help Quinn finally bury her daughter.

The girl that used to be their daughter.

Rachel does not know when she stopped calling Beth her own daughter in her mind. Was it the second after the collision, or was it not until the funeral was over and all the weight of what had transpired had crashed down on her that Rachel determined she no longer had the right? After all, a mother does not kill her daughter.

She does not know. She does know that a mother should never be given the chance to bury her child, but it is a task that must be undertaken when given. A child should have the comfort of being put to rest by her mother one last time, and Rachel cannot and could not give Beth that comfort.

But she does not press Quinn. She waits as every memory plays out in Quinn's mind, and she watches Beth's life in Quinn's dead eyes. They are eyes which always seemed so miserable to Rachel. The first time she had caught sight of Quinn, it was not her sneer or the Slushee that covered Rachel that drew her attention; it was Quinn's eyes, those hazel windows which showed nothing but pain and emptiness behind them.

That pain had once been lifted from Quinn, that emptiness filled, and though Rachel sees it fading away once again, she wonders if it will ever be gone the same as it had when they had held Beth between them as they slept on their bed.

Rachel does know one thing, however: she knows that there will be regret festering every time Rachel looks into Quinn's eyes, so long as Quinn has not done what has needed to be done.

Maybe Quinn realizes this when she nods her head.

Her daddy drives them there in what used to be Rachel's car, before the thought of a wheel being in her grasp had filled her with the insurmountable dread that she would end up killing some other member of someone else's family.

Her daddy waits in the car while she leads Quinn along the path which has never felt quite so long. Quinn's hand is limp within her own, and her eyes are being filled with so many painful emotions with every step they take. Rachel tries her hardest not to allow that pain to be reflected in her own eyes, to be the strong one for once and do this one good thing for Quinn, but there eyes have always been mirrors. There is no pain that cannot be found in both.

The pain all drops away when they come to the grave. Instead, it is like shutters have fallen over Quinn's eyes, and closed off everything that was there. There is only emptiness there.

The emptiness carries over to her voice as she asks where the picture is. She doesn't look away from the tombstone when Rachel pulls it out of her pocket, only nods.

Rachel does not return the photo to her pocket. She holds it out in front of her and looks at it. She has tortured herself with this picture ever since the day she plucked it from this grave, before the cleaning crew had come to wipe the blood away. Before, she had tortured herself with the knowledge that the picture for which she murdered Quinn's daughter was lost to her. She is not quite sure which is the more painful, but she knows that is a pain that will never compare to Quinn's. She has tried for so long to mirror that level of pain, to try and hurt herself as she has hurt Quinn, but it is an impossible task.

Besides, what right does a murderer have to grief?

But Beth deserves to have her mother grieve for her. She deserves to hear her voice one last time.

"Do you want to say something?" Rachel asks.

Her voice is quiet and as gentle as can be, but Quinn flinches nonetheless. The shutters lift for the briefest moment, and Rachel is left to drown in the deluge of misery that seeps out from underneath; misery she will never be able to match. Then they are closed off again, a wall built miles high.

"Do you want me to say something?" Rachel asks instead. She receives the slightest nod in return. "Okay."

She slowly sits in front of the grave, keeping Quinn's hand in her grasp. Quinn sits down next to her on the damp grass, a puppet to be moved according to Rachel's wishes.

(Rachel has robbed her of so much.)

Rachel takes a deep breath. When she speaks, it is with the quiet affirmation that she can at least do this for Quinn.

"Hello, Beth," she says. The reaction is immediate in the sudden tightening of Quinn's hand around Rachel's, the closing of her eyes as to force the shutters back down. More pain Rachel has caused Quinn, pain which Rachel will never make up for.

But Rachel must continue. "Your mommy is here," she says. Another reaction, this time in the opening of Quinn's eyes as she looks over at Rachel with an inscrutable emotion in her eyes. Rachel has suspicions as to the cause, but she does not let it affect her. She must continue on, and do this for Quinn and Beth.

"She's here, but I'm going to talk for her, okay?" Rachel says. "I don't… I don't know what exactly she wants to say, but I'll try my best."

What would Quinn say? What is it that Quinn wishes to say to her daughter? How can Rachel possibly not what to say to a child in a time such as this?

"She wants you to know that she loves you very much," Rachel says. Yes, Quinn would always want Beth to know that. No matter what or when, Quinn would want to ensure that Beth knew she was loved. She never wanted her to doubt that fact as Quinn had so many times.

But what else? What else does Quinn wish to say that Rachel is failing to express for her? What else is Rachel robbing Quinn of the chance to say?

"She… She wants you to know that… that…"

Rachel blinks back tears. How can she fail at this? How can she let Quinn down at every opportunity? How can she ruin everything Quinn has given her?

"I… I'm sorry, I…" The words are painful to her. The words which do not come to her are more painful still. She cannot look to Quinn, cannot bear to see the disappointment crushing her in those hazel eyes, the hate growing there as Rachel destroys more and more.

"She… S-She wants… t-to…"

"Your mama wants you to know that she loves you."

Rachel's gaze snaps over to Quinn. Quinn is watching her, and her hand is tight around Rachel's. It is holding her there as she collapses.

"She can't talk right now," Quinn says, not taking her eyes off of Rachel. The shutters there are rising ever so slowly, but they are not hiding as much pain as they had before. There is something else there now. "It hurts too much for her to talk.

"It's like when she had to have her tonsils removed. Do you remember that? She carried around that big pad of paper and she would scribble everything she wanted to say down on it. She had me running ragged, getting things for her. I had to call your dad over to help take care of you, since I was too busy taking care of your mama. I remember you were so confused, wondering why she wouldn't say anything to you, and I was so exasperated telling her that just because she wrote 'I love you,' it didn't mean you understood it. You thought she was mad at you, and I was so mad at her because of that.

"But you remember that night? She brought you into our room, and she cuddled up with you in our bed, and she told you. She said, 'I love you,' the first thing she'd said since her surgery, because she couldn't bear you not knowing. Because she loved you so much."

Rachel is crying, trying vainly to stifle her sobs. She can't miss a single word of what Quinn has to say, even as Quinn herself cries. But her speech does not falter.

"We both love you, okay baby? All of us do. Your mommy loves you, your mama loves you, and your dad loves you. Everybody who's ever met you loves you, and we all miss you. We'll always miss you, and we'll always love you."

"Y-Yes!" Rachel says, suddenly finding her voice again. She has to speak. She has to let Beth know. She can't make this mistake. "I love you so much, Beth. We both love you. Your mommy and… and your m-mama… we both love you."

Quinn smiles at her, their fingers knitted together in their joined hands. "We're going to go away soon, okay baby? We're going to New York, just like we were always going to. But we'll come back. We'll always come back, and we'll tell you all about New York. We'll tell you all about your mama's Broadway debut, and we'll tell you all about my first book. You'll be the first to know. And your dad will be here too. You know him, he'll always be visiting and seeing how you're doing."

Quinn sucks in a breath, and Rachel finally sees the emotion in her eyes for what it is. Love.

"And m-maybe one day we'll tell… we'll tell you all about your baby brother or sister. And we'll tell you all about when I propose to your mama. And we'll tell you all about our wedding, and—and everything. You won't miss a thing. You won't have to miss us, even if we miss you.

"Okay, baby girl?"

The End