Previous Part Three
Quinn had convinced herself that she wasn't worried about what Rachel had to tell her, even had herself believing it when the doorbell rang at precisely quarter past six and her heart started beating frantically in her chest. Okay, so maybe she hadn't had her powers for long and maybe they weren't the greatest but Quinn had long ago figured out when people were genuinely sorry or genuinely scared for someone else. Rachel's thoughts had been practically impossible to make out under the smothering blanket of fear and something that had felt too much like pity for Quinn's comfort and now she wanted to do nothing more but refuse to answer the door and just sit on the stairs for the rest of her life, pretending that everything was normal.
Of course, if she stayed sitting on the stairs for years she supposed not many people would think she was normal.
Sighing, she grabbed hold of the banister and hauled herself up. She stared at the door and could see the slight form of Rachel on the other side of the door through the cloudy glass shifting back and forward. Rachel seemed almost nervous and it made her feel slightly better about the way her stomach was fluttering. Taking a deep breath, Quinn straightened her skirt and walked over to the door, steadying herself before she opened it.
Rachel turned towards her, offering Quinn a small smile. "Hey," she said.
"I have chicken goujons," Quinn said abruptly. "And some other things in the fridge, probably. I didn't actually check before you came, but if you're hungry."
Rachel was looking at her as if she were halfway through working out a puzzle that really interested her. Quinn frowned and was about to open her mouth to ask Rachel what was going on when Rachel smiled brightly and said, "Actually, that would be great. I haven't eaten since lunch-I had to go straight from school to singing lessons."
Quinn blinked. "You go to singing lessons?"
"Well, yes, of course," Rachel said, eyeing Quinn as if she thought she was mad. "I have to make sure I keep on top of my game. I'm going to be on Broadway when I'm older." She said it with all the confidence of someone who knew exactly what they wanted and was working hard to achieve it. Quinn didn't doubt for a second that it'd happen but it unnerved her, somewhat, to be looking at this girl who was younger than her and yet somehow had it all figured out. It was wrong on so many levels.
"But I've heard you sing. I mean, of course I have, I joined your little club, didn't I? But you just--you're brilliant. You hardly need singing lessons." Quinn had actually been surprised to find out that Rachel Berry, the little sophomore who had thought she could steal Quinn's boyfriend had been good at anything. For years, Rachel had been barely a blip on Quinn's radar: annoying, but always there and Quinn had known stuff about her without really realizing it. Then, Mr. Schu had taken over Glee Club and it had become a thing. Finn, her boyfriend, had joined because--well, Quinn had never been quite sure why he joined but it hadn't taken her long to discover that Rachel had her eye on Finn and Quinn had decided to join as well because there was no way she was going to let some silly little sophomore steal her boyfriend.
Of course, now, it seemed a bit silly. Finn had dumped her months ago and for some reason she was still in Glee club, still singing in front of people and even enjoying it. But even that seemed distant, now. What wasn't distant, though, was the multiple memories she had of listening to Rachel sing. She was beautiful when she sung: she seemed free, somehow, like a happier version of herself. Quinn had used to suspect that Rachel carried some huge weight around on her shoulders and the only time she'd ever really seen it lifting was when Rachel was singing her heart out, up on stage and in front of people. It had been such a beautiful sight to see and her voice was undoubtedly amazing. She definitely didn't need singing lessons.
Rachel, though, seemed to disagree if her expression was anything to go by. She raised an eyebrow and placed a hand on her hip and it was only then that Quinn realized she still hadn't actually moved to let Rachel into the house. Her cheeks reddened somewhat and she stepped out of the way, gesturing for Rachel to come in.
When Quinn closed the door she found herself standing so close to Rachel she could hear the other girl swallowing in the stillness. She forced herself to take a step backwards, unsure why she had had to make such an effort just to make herself move, and cleared her throat. "I'll get some food. We can eat it in the kitchen and you can tell me why you came here, okay?"
Rachel nodded and followed her through to the kitchen, taking a seat at the table as Quinn wandered around the kitchen, getting dishes down and checking on the chicken goujons in the oven. It was quiet in the kitchen, neither girl speaking but somehow it didn't seem overpowering or weird. Quinn felt at ease, almost, as she plated up the food which, okay, she may have made because Rachel had once told her that chicken was her favorite meat. Not that she would ever admit to it, of course.
When she set the plates down on the table she was treated to a smile so bright it made her breath catch in her throat. Quinn cleared her throat again and then sat down, smiling wanly at Rachel. "So," she said, just to say something. "I-how was your first day back?"
"I spent the entire day feeling guilty," Rachel informed her, her tone light. It almost sounded like she was talking about the weather, or a particularly interesting class she'd had that day.
"Why?" Quinn asked, although she had a good idea.
"Because it was my fault that we couldn't go back to our normal classrooms. It was my fault that I kept seeing all these people walking about, looking like something was missing. The girl I sit beside in German is dead." Rachel glared briefly down at her plate and Quinn spotted the exact moment that she must have realized that Quinn was looking at her because her expression quickly smoothed itself out.
"I'm sorry," Quinn said and she reached across the table. Her fingers trailed lightly across the delicate skin of Rachel's wrist, tracing the veins. It was only a brief second before she pulled away, her heart thudding so loudly from the brief contact that she could feel her pulse quicken in her throat.
When she looked up at Rachel, Quinn saw that she was smiling slightly, a distant almost pleased expression on her face. She couldn't quite understand why the other girl looked so pleased or why her heart was beating so fast, or why her chest felt tighter or even why her stomach felt strange.
"Rachel," Quinn started and then changed her mind. "I think you mean sat."
Rachel blinked at her. "What?"
"You said the girl you sit beside in German is dead. I think you mean the girl you sat beside."
Gaping at her, Rachel stared straight at Quinn for a full minute before she said, "That's unbelievably insensitive."
"I don't care." Quinn blinked, surprised at herself. "That's not what I meant. I do care that she's dead. I care a lot. I spent days sitting in my bed, basically crying my heart out because I couldn't save every single person there-even the girl you sat beside in German who I don't even know."
"What?"
"It's stupid, isn't it?" Quinn laughed and stabbed at one of the chicken goujons with her fork. "I printed off one of the articles with a list of the dead and I literally kept it with me all day for quite a few days. I cried over every single one of those people. I don't know most of the people, Rachel. I shouldn't have cared. I kept telling myself I didn't care in my head and it slipped out and I didn't mean it too. Because I can't care about them all, Rachel. How insensitive does that sound? I wish I could, but I can't because I was miserable. I didn't move from my room. I was a wreck." She fell quiet for a few moments and this time it was Rachel reaching for her hand, tangling their fingers together. Quinn stared at their joined hands for a moment, lost and confused and completely out of her depth. And then she made the decision to keep talking.
"I heard them all. Every last one of them, in my head. When the building started falling in, my powers were just open. I was trying to eavesdrop on a conversation. Which is so pathetic, nobody even listens to me anymore in school since I properly joined Glee and left cheerleading, but I wanted to know some of the gossip. It was killing me not to know it, because I could just tell it was going to be great. So, I was trying to eavesdrop and the next thing I know my head was filled with all these people screaming in fear, and swearing, and panicking and crying. And hurt. The hurt." Quinn tightened her fingers unconsciously around Rachel's. "I couldn't feel it physically but it was like a phantom pain. All over my body. And the sheer weight of their fear. I couldn't cope with it, so I shut it all off, but it hurt to do it. It really hurt. And then I wouldn't turn it back on, I refused to for, like, a week afterwards because I didn't want to know what anyone else around me thought. What if people were thinking that it should have been me instead of their son or their daughter? Or that I should have helped them? Rach, I-I could have helped them. If I had the strength to deal with everything I could hear in my head at that moment I could have found some people. Stopped them from dying."
Her throat was suddenly tight and Quinn bowed her head, her teeth scraping against the inside of her cheek as she worried it. She'd not said that out loud, not really. Not all of it anyway, because she didn't think others would have understood or listened. She trusted that Rachel would listen and suspected she understood. One glance at Rachel's expression confirmed this.
"Don't feel sorry for me," Quinn said. "Please. I'm okay, I'll get over it. It's just...something I wanted to share. Because I felt guilty and then someone had to remind me it wasn't my fault and I didn't really believe my mom when she said that and I didn't believe my dad and it took my friend to say it for me to believe it because, you know, parents just have to say that kind of stuff." She squeezed Rachel's hands tighter in her own and under the table she pressed her knees to Rachel's. "I just wanted to tell you that it's not your fault. You aren't guilty. You didn't kill anybody."
Rachel pushed back suddenly, dropping Quinn's hand and before Quinn really had the chance to mourn the loss she found herself caught up in watching Rachel pace the kitchen, the tension radiating from her. "But it was my fault they were even there. If I hadn't been so stubborn they wouldn't have attacked the school. I should have gone quietly with them."
"What do you mean gone quietly with them?" Quinn asked, her eyes glued on Rachel's face.
Rachel's mouth twisted upwards in an imitation of a smile. "They offered me the chance to leave quietly. To just go with them. They said that nobody would get hurt and that I wouldn't even know it had happened. I'd just lose everything--my powers, my memory. They'd dump me somewhere, but everybody I knew and I loved would be unharmed and nothing bad would happen to anybody but me. And I couldn't face that, Quinn. I couldn't do that. My powers are part of me, they're part of who I am and I was so sure I could fight them off. I thought they were just bluffing. I know the guy they sent this time, you see. I thought he was just being silly. I could take him, I knew I could but then he--he didn't go for me. He went for the school, for the building. Quinn, I thought he was bluffing."
Rachel's voice cracked and Quinn wanted so badly to get up, to go to Rachel and embrace her and tell her it wasn't her fault, but she remained still. "It's not your fault," she said.
Rachel spun around, whirled on her. "How can you say that?" she demanded. "It was my fault, weren't you listening? I used to think I was such a good person but how can I be a good person if I put myself over everybody else?"
"It's not your fault," Quinn repeated. She stood up this time, slowly walking towards Rachel who seemed to be vibrating with emotion. "It can't be your fault because you didn't use your powers to cause the school to start tumbling down. It wasn't you who did it. You did what anybody would do, Rach. It wasn't your fault."
"Would you do that?" Rachel said. "Would you put yourself before everybody else?"
Quinn smiled slowly, although it was as much an imitation of a smile as Rachel's had been earlier. "I am always putting myself before everybody else," she said. The statement was more honest than she wanted it to be. "So I'm probably the last person you actually want to ask that question to."
"But you didn't put yourself before everybody else the other day," Rachel pointed out. "I was right there, so you can't lie to me. You wouldn't leave until everyone else was out and you were concerned for them too. Harry told me that you kept asking how everyone was and trying to get them to calm down."
Quinn could feel her cheeks coloring and she glanced away from Rachel. She hadn't planned on letting anyone know that. "That's different, though."
"How?" Rachel asked, her eyes almost pleading with Quinn to come up with a fabulous solution that would dissipate all the guilt which almost seemed like a tangible presence she carried on her shoulders. "How is it different, Quinn?"
"Because I didn't have to make a choice like yours," Quinn said. "I didn't have to look someone in the eyes and choose between myself and other people. I was dealing with an aftermath, not making a choice. And if it was a choice I wouldn't have believed them. I hate my power sometimes, Rachel. I despise it. But I wouldn't give it up for the world.”
"They're going to hurt you."
It was an abrupt change of conversation and Quinn instantly stilled. She'd been about to step even closer to Rachel, about to lead her into the living room so they could sit somewhere comfortable while Rachel had her crisis. Instead her fingers were fluttering uselessly in mid air and everything had seemed to slow down. She was looking at the world through a thin pane of glass, distorting the images she saw and the words she heard. It was the only explanation for what Rachel had just said.
Blinking slowly in a way she knew made her look gormless, Quinn said, "Sorry, what?"
"I said they're going to hurt you." Rachel paused and offered Quinn a soft smile, tinged with apology. "One of them followed me from school to dance lessons yesterday and said he saw the two of us on CNN. And I think he must have got the impression-the wrong impression, anyway, and he said that for what I made them do they're going to hurt you."
Quinn's throat felt like it was closing over but she nodded, as if everything Rachel said made sense. She folded her arms around herself, hugging her middle and tried to pretend she wasn't involved with anything that had just come out of Rachel's mouth. "First of all, you didn't make them do anything," she said. "And secondly, I can take care of myself."
"I'm not letting you take care of yourself."
Quinn looked up, surprised, and saw Rachel's eyes flashing with an emotion she couldn't quite place. "What can you do?" Quinn asked. "What can you honestly do, Rachel? These people they're after you and they want to hurt me. I can take care of myself but if you're near me then they're going to get you."
"They could take your power."
"At least it wouldn't be yours," Quinn snapped. "I can do nothing at all useful with mine, that's what I discovered when the school was crashing down around us, Rachel. Sure, maybe every now and again I can read someone's mind but overall I can do nothing. I was there for hours with these people and it was so useless, I was so useless. I don't want to give my power up if I can help it but if it's a choice between yours and mine it can't be mine because mine doesn't do anything. I will never save someone's life with mine."
"You don't mean that."
"I do." Quinn sighed and lifted a hand, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I do mean it. So I'll take care of myself. I'll be extra careful. I promise."
Rachel regarded her for a minute and then a wicked smile slashed across her face. "No. I'm going to get you some sort of a protector."
The very thought left Quinn feeling cold and slightly terrified. She opened her mouth to say as much (and, admittedly, to protest against the fact that she needed protecting. This wasn't the 1800s and she wasn't some damsel in distress. She was a badass “Power”, thank you very much, but all Rachel had to do was step closer to her, with a wicked light in her eyes and Quinn suddenly found her breathing was becoming somewhat erratic and her thoughts had derailed off track.
"Uh," she started, scrambling frantically around for anything to say.
Rachel lifted a finger and placed it on Quinn's lips, her eyes still dancing wickedly. "Shh. Come with me, we're going to go get your protector." Then, Rachel grabbed Quinn's hand and pulled her out of the house before Quinn had managed to start thinking straight again.
*
It took an embarrassingly long time before Quinn had realized where they were going and the instant she had she’d dug her heels in and refused to go any further. As it turned out, though, Rachel wasn’t adverse to using her powers on Quinn and Quinn had found herself being forced down the street due to the power of Rachel’s mind and wasn’t that a strange way to describe her day? And then she was standing on Finn’s front porch, fiddling with her sleeve, as they waited for Finn to answer the door.
“Maybe he’s not in,” Quinn suggested after a moment, a hopeful expression on her face. Rachel turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised, and Quinn sighed deeply before turning her head away. “Look, I love Finn! I do! But I don’t think that this is necessarily the best idea you’ve ever had.”
“It’s a fantastic idea,” Rachel proclaimed. Quinn opened her mouth to argue but the door opened and suddenly she was staring at Finn, her ex-boyfriend who she hadn’t actually spoken to in about a month, who was regarding the two of them with a slight look of confusion on his face.
“Uh. Is there Glee practice today?” Finn asked, stepping out onto the front porch and half closing the door behind him.
“No, Finn,” Quinn said, rolling her eyes. Without meaning to her voice had slipped into that slightly fond tone she tended to default to whenever she was speaking to him. “Glee’s pretty much been cancelled until things have quieted down a bit.”
Finn breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought I’d completely forgotten and you two were here to kick my ass.” He seemed to think about that for a minute and then said, “Well, I thought Rachel was here to kick my ass and you’d come along as some kind of, I dunno, moral support.”
Rachel snorted. “Because I’d need moral support to kick your ass?”
“Maybe not,” Finn admitted. “But you’d need help. You’re so short you probably couldn’t reach my ass.”
Quinn smiled widely as she watched Finn and Rachel banter, a warm feeling spreading through her chest. She had somehow managed to forget how light she could feel when she watched her friends just be friends, allow themselves to talk. And somehow, even though she wasn’t joining in, she didn’t feel like an outsider. Without meaning to, her fingers skimmed against Rachel’s and Quinn saw the smile that instantly appeared on Rachel’s face. Taking the incentive, she tangled their fingers together, lifting her chin slightly to look up at Finn, her expression daring him to say something.
Of course, she should have remembered that Finn pretty much didn’t notice anything unless it was specifically pointed out to him and had certainly not noticed Quinn taking a hold of Rachel’s hand. Instead he was chatting blithely away with Rachel and it was another few minutes before he seemed to remember that having both Quinn and Rachel standing on his front porch was actually not an everyday occurrence.
“Uh, guys? If you’re not here ‘cause of glee or to kick my ass why are you here?” Finn asked, a crease appearing between his brows.
“Oh, yes,” Rachel said, blinking as if she’d completely forgotten the reason she had decided to drag Quinn over here. “Well, see, the thing is because of me someone has threatened Quinn.”
Quinn watched Finn as he tipped his head backwards. It was blatantly obvious that he had simply accepted what Rachel had said as a fact without giving any thought whatsoever as to whether or not Rachel was lying or winding him up. Sure, Rachel’s tone had been completely serious as was her expression, but Quinn couldn’t have guaranteed that if anyone had come up to her and said that that she would have believed them. She might have questioned their sanity but even if she hadn’t she’d definitely have asked them a million questions before she believed them. Finn just seemed to accept it. Quinn was pretty sure that was abnormal and, for some reason, that thought brought about another rush of affection.
Finn’s expression barely changed as he considered what Rachel had told him and then he was looking right at the two of them and nodding slowly. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”
Beside her, Rachel jumped slightly, a beatific smile spreading across her face and Quinn couldn’t help but beam up at Finn too. He smiled lazily down at them and then seemed to spot their joined hands. Quinn saw his eyebrow rising but he didn’t say anything and Quinn wanted to do nothing more than hug him until he couldn’t breathe because sometimes she forgot how awesome Finn was and she needed to remind him that she appreciated it more often. So she did, launching herself forward and enveloping Finn in a hug. He started and then Quinn felt his arms tighten around her and she turned her face into his chest.
“Thank you,” she muttered and Finn squeezed her tighter.
When she pulled back, Finn was smiling at her as if she’d just done something fabulous and Rachel was watching them with a smug expression on her face, as if she had orchestrated the whole thing. Quinn scowled at her slightly but Rachel just smiled back at her.
“Right,” Quinn said, smoothing imaginary creases out of her skirt. “Well, Rachel already said that I’ve been threatened. I just want you to know that, actually, I don’t really need protecting. I’m fine on my own. But we can maybe...co-protect me? I mean, I’ll defend myself but you can be back up in case I mess up, okay?”
Finn and Rachel were both regarding her with amused expressions and Quinn cleared her throat, jutting her chin out stubbornly. “I’m offended that both of you think I need protecting,” she informed them.
Rachel’s expression turned into a study of emotions at war-she seemed torn between laughing and the need to express something a lot more serious. Eventually, the need to be serious seemed to win out because the next thing she said was, “You don’t know how bad these guys are, Q.”
“Who are these guys?” Finn interrupted.
“The Legion,” Rachel said, sorrowfully. “The Legion Against Powers. LAP. I just like to call the group them rather than acknowledging them. They’re horrible, Finn. There’s some of them and they can steal your powers. They’re not really against powers, I don’t care what they say. They just want to harvest them for themselves, so they’re ‘better’ than all of us.”
“I know,” Finn said. It took questioning looks from both Rachel and Quinn before he seemed to realize he needed to elaborate. “Um, you know my Aunt Kelly? She was, well, she was clairvoyant. My mom told me that means she could tell the future. And the Legion came after her.” He shrugged and rubbed at his neck. “She died when I was about eight. I didn’t think much of it at the time-Mom wouldn’t tell me what really happened just that Aunt Kelly had died and gone to Heaven. I only found out what happened about three years ago.”
Quinn reached forward and laid a hand on Finn’s arm, squeezing it gently. He looked down at her and smiled.
“So you know what they can do? You know how brutal they can be?” Rachel said sharply. “You’ve got to-they told me they would target Quinn. They promised me they would.”
Finn blinked slowly. “But why?” he asked. “Why did they promise you they’d come after Quinn? Why would they talk to you?”
Rachel looked away for a second. “They’re after me. Somehow they’ve not come across telekinesis before or maybe they’ve not come across telekinesis as strong as mine before. I don’t know, but they cornered me about three weeks ago. Followed me everywhere. Threatened my dads and my friends and everyone I know. I was scared out of my mind. And then they offered me-they offered me the chance to just give my powers up but I wouldn’t, not to them. So they made the school crumble and they must have seen that footage of me and Quinn.”
“But why would they tell you they were going after her before they actually went after her?”
Rachel shrugged. “They offered me a chance to just give in again. And I said I wouldn’t and they said they were going to go after her. So we have to protect her.”
“She’s standing right here, you know,” Quinn interjected, slightly irritated that both Rachel and Finn were talking about her as if she wasn’t there. “You can stop talking about me as if I’m not here.”
Finn smiled blandly at her. “We’re not. You can totally jump in any time you want,” he said helpfully. “It’s just I don’t think you should disagree with anything Rachel’s saying.”
“I think I should disagree with a lot of what Rachel says, just on principle,” Quinn informed him, somewhat haughtily. “But that’s not why I want to speak. It’s-if they’re coming after you, really, how are you going to protect yourself? Maybe they’re lying to you about coming after me just to get you off your guard. So they can just come along and you'll be so wrapped up in trying to protect me that you'll not pay any attention to any threats to you and I just can't have that happening."
Rachel regarded her with a look on her face that Quinn couldn't quite decipher. Then she smiled, her eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. "Are you worried about me?"
Quinn flushed. "No," she said, her hands flapping slightly through the air. "No, I'm not worried." For some reason, at that, Rachel's smile seemed to widen even further, her features softening. Rachel caught her eye and for a moment they were just staring at each other. Quinn found herself unable to tear her eyes away for a moment until Finn shifted beside her and cleared his throat.
"Right," Finn said, his amusement evident. "So Rachel's worried about you and you're worried about Rachel. What've I got to do with it?"
"You have super strength," Rachel stated. "If you stick close to Quinn, she won't get hurt. Because she can use her powers to read the minds of people around her, try and check if people are around who are...well, undesirable. And then you can help make sure they can't get her." Rachel nodded, pleased with herself and Quinn rolled her eyes.
"Neither of us are going to let you just prance about unprotected," Quinn informed her, stepping closer to Finn so it looked like they were presenting a united front against Rachel.
"I'm not unprotected. I have an active power, something I can use to fight them," Rachel said. "You don't."
"Oh, rub it in, why don't you?" Quinn snapped, suddenly angry. "You're brilliant, we all know that. But they're the Legion, Rachel, and you're not-you're just learning how to use your powers, just like all of us."
"Quinn," said Finn, a warning tone in his voice but Rachel shook her head, cutting him off.
"It's alright, Finn, she's right. I'm not strong enough to fight them off. So I'm going out to practice, to train. To make myself better." There was a determined jut to her chin and Quinn didn't doubt for one second that she meant it. Licking her lips, Quinn studied Rachel for a moment and then made up her mind.
"Right, well, that's what we're all going to do," she announced, her tone leaving no room for an argument. "Come on, then, may as well get started now."
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