The Popular Kids (Chapter 1) R
Title: The Popular Kids (Chapter 1)
Author: glasheen25
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Finn/Quinn, Puck, Rachel, ensemble
Warnings: character death, strong language, some sexual scenes
Spoilers: for all of season 1
Word count: 1838
Disclaimer: This Glee fanfiction is based upon the television show of the same name. All characters and situations other than my own are sole property of Ryan Murphy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.
Summary: When Quinn Fabray is brutally murdered, the police mount an investigation and quickly discover that there is more than one McKinley High student who would like to see her dead. The prologue is set in the days preceding the pilot episode of Glee.
A/N: I just want to say a huge thank you to abluegirl who very kindly agreed to beta this story for me and gave me lots of good advice:)
A black veil angled carefully over her face, one perfect tear glistened in Rachel’s eyes as she stood somber-faced at the graveside. Rachel had never been to a funeral before and she was determined to use this experience to her advantage. Method acting, Natalie Portman had called it. McKinley High was staging Les Miserables in the spring and the part of Eponine, the part Rachel was absolutely determined to get, demanded the kind of emotional performance that required looking at the most heart-wrenching scenes from both Titanic and The Notebook as a psychological warm-up.
Having held the dual accolade of being both head cheerleader and most popular girl at school, Quinn Fabray’s funeral was predictably packed. McKinley High students stood in tight little huddles around the graveside, their red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks speaking of their absolute devastation as they clung to one another for support. Rachel, though stood alone, friendship being the one skill she had never quite mastered.
“I just can’t believe this has happened.”
It took Rachel a moment to comprehend that someone was speaking to her. Nobody ever initiated conversation with Rachel Berry. In class, she sat alone and silent, while all around the other students laughed and joked, indulging in the latest, juiciest gossip of the day. Not that she was surprised; being the most vocally proficient student in McKinley High carried it’s own burden and Rachel understood that most people were quite rightly, fiercely intimidated by her incredible talent.
Raising her brown eyes curiously, Rachel was surprised to see herself staring into Finn Hudson’s handsome face.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel began nervously, knowing the words were meaningless and hollow but not sure exactly what else to say. It wasn’t as if she could chime in with some well intentioned story of a fond memory she had shared with Quinn Fabray because there were none. Quinn had tormented Rachel under her reign as queen of McKinley High and reflecting on that, Rachel wasn’t quite sure why she had attended the memorial service in the first place.
Finn shrugged as though he hadn’t even heard her, her words not even registering in his brain. Fixing Rachel with one last searching look, Finn edged his way through the crowds of people that were milling around, a friend occasionally stopping to draw him into a hug.
Left alone with her thoughts, Rachel’s attention returned to the solitary figure of Quinn’s mother sitting frozen at her daughter’s grave. Her face expressionless, she barely reacted when people came over to offer their words of condolences, the hand they extended awkward and uncertain. Mr. Fabray’s face was arranged in a similar display of shock and horror, his arm wrapped around his eldest daughter’s shoulders, who was crying uncontrollably, her entire body wracked in heaving, miserable sobs.
Despite everything Quinn had put her through, the name calling, the snide insults and the slushie facials, she didn’t deserve this. Nobody did. There had been horrific whispers circulating in the hallways that Quinn had been bludgeoned to death with a hammer, rendering the driveway of the Fabray household a veritable bloodbath.
--
Standing at a distance from the graveside, Detective John Andrews eyed the unfolding scene curiously. The crowd attending the memorial service merged into a single wall of black but Detective Andrews could see the Fabray family clearly, the trio sitting in a miserable huddle by their daughter’s coffin. The family looked devastated, the blonde, young woman who was evidently Quinn’s sister enfolded in her father’s arms and wailing miserably. But then, tears were easy to fake and John wasn’t so easily taken in by an outward display of emotion, however convincing it might seem. Twenty years of working as a hardened detective had taught him the cunning ways of people who had something to hide.
“What do you think?” the detective asked, turning to his partner curiously.
Running a hand frustratedly through her pale-blonde curls, Detective Anne Brown sighed heavily as she regarded the grieving family. “John, that family have just lost their daughter. Their lives are never going to be the same again. So what I think is we should give them time to grieve before we start probing into every dark corner of their lives. Interviewing the family can wait until tomorrow.”
“I guess you’re right.” Detective Andrews agreed gruffly, his steel grey eyes scanning the crowd for a final time before he walked reluctantly away.
--
Finn’s hand was starting to ache from the steady stream of mourners who came up to offer their condolences. The faces were all starting to merge into one. The same plate of untouched chicken salad remained in his hand but Finn couldn’t bring himself to eat it. His stomach turned as he remembered Quinn’s lifeless body lying sprawled out on the ground, her golden blonde hair sticky with blood. It was an image Finn couldn’t get out of his mind, no matter how hard he tried and the dozens of framed photographs of Quinn that smiled down from the walls weren’t helping.
The house was crowded, the air sticky and warm and Finn threw off his jacket and wandered out into the garden. Outside, the night was still and calm and relishing the feel of the cool air on his skin, Finn wandered over to join Puck, who was hunched over miserably on the garden wall.
“This sucks,” Puck muttered dismally, taking an angry swig from the bottle of beer clutched in his hands. “If I could get my hands on the guy who did this...”
Puck’s words trailed away menacingly and Finn could see the venom in his eyes.
“You saw her, right?”
Seeing Finn nod slowly in answer, Puck continued hesitantly. “You don’t think she suffered, do you?”
There was no easy way to answer that question. The doctors who’d attended the scene had all been quick to assure the Fabrays that no, Quinn didn’t suffer and that she had died instantly after the first blow. The anguished expression that had been frozen on Quinn’s face and the wild splatters of red that had daubed the wall had suggested otherwise though.
“She didn’t suffer,” Finn agreed and the tense muscles in Puck’s face softened a little.
The pair sat in comfortable silence after that, Puck’s taking intermittent swigs from his bottle of beer before passing it over to Finn.
“You know, you can come to me if you want to talk, right?” Puck offered quietly, the pair staring into the darkness.
“I know,” Finn replied, draining the bottle of beer before heading back inside the house to meet another wave of shocked and dazed faces.
--
School was generally a hellish experience for Rachel. She was taunted, laughed at, jeered. Her books could end in the garbage, gym clothes flushed down the toilet. In life, Quinn had made Rachel’s existence an utter hell but ironically, the shock that was circulating throughout the school caused by the head cheerleader’s death had offered Rachel somewhat of a temporary reprieve. Students that would normally occupy themselves with terrorizing Rachel, were now too wrapped up in every minute detail of Quinn’s shocking murder, to care that Rachel had received a complementary comment from Mrs. Jacobs on the supposedly enlightening paper she had written about irony in the works of Shakespeare or that she had uploaded a video of herself singing her favorite song from the musical Wicked onto her myspace page.
Walking down the hallway, the usual defiant expression on her face, Rachel’s curiosity was piqued by a sign pinned up on the notice board.
Sign ups for Glee Club.
Considering the abysmal lack of talent in McKinley High, Rachel felt it was her duty to offer her services to the Glee club and only hesitated for a second, before scrawling her signature on the page.
Rachel ★
“What’s with the star?”
Gazing behind her, Rachel braced herself for ridicule but the smile that met her was warm and genuine.
“Hi, I’m Tina,” she introduced herself, a slight stutter in her voice and Rachel found herself smiling uncertainly back. “See you at rehearsal,” the girl shyly smiled, printing her name neatly on the sheet before shuffling meekly into her class.
--
The coffee at the police station was notoriously bad but it contained some much needed caffeine so Detective John Andrews reluctantly poured himself a cup. Taking a sip from the steaming liquid, he was about to grab himself a quick sandwich, when the buzz from his cell phone forced him to return to his desk.
“Detective Andrews.” he answered gruffly, placing the cellphone to his ear and throwing himself into his chair.
“Hello, Detective.” a voice greeted him curtly and Detective Andrews recognized it immediately as belonging to the coroner who had performed the autopsy on Quinn Fabray.
“Hello, Dr. James. What have you got for me?” the detective drawled lazily, taking a grateful sip from his cup of coffee.
“As suspected, the victim’s injuries were caused by blunt force trauma to the head by a framing hammer. Her skull shattered at the point of injury causing immediate death. There’s something else, though,” the woman continued and there was something in her voice that caused Andrews to sit up little straighter in his chair.
“The victim was approximately eight weeks pregnant.” she offered, giving the detective a moment to allow the information to sink in.
“Quinn Fabray was pregnant?” the man repeated disbelievingly. “When I interviewed her parents this evening, they never mentioned that,”
“They probably didn’t know,” the woman offered sadly, informing the detective that she would have the autopsy report sent over to him first thing in the morning before hanging up.
prologue
--
Author: glasheen25
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Finn/Quinn, Puck, Rachel, ensemble
Warnings: character death, strong language, some sexual scenes
Spoilers: for all of season 1
Word count: 1838
Disclaimer: This Glee fanfiction is based upon the television show of the same name. All characters and situations other than my own are sole property of Ryan Murphy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.
Summary: When Quinn Fabray is brutally murdered, the police mount an investigation and quickly discover that there is more than one McKinley High student who would like to see her dead. The prologue is set in the days preceding the pilot episode of Glee.
A/N: I just want to say a huge thank you to abluegirl who very kindly agreed to beta this story for me and gave me lots of good advice:)
A black veil angled carefully over her face, one perfect tear glistened in Rachel’s eyes as she stood somber-faced at the graveside. Rachel had never been to a funeral before and she was determined to use this experience to her advantage. Method acting, Natalie Portman had called it. McKinley High was staging Les Miserables in the spring and the part of Eponine, the part Rachel was absolutely determined to get, demanded the kind of emotional performance that required looking at the most heart-wrenching scenes from both Titanic and The Notebook as a psychological warm-up.
Having held the dual accolade of being both head cheerleader and most popular girl at school, Quinn Fabray’s funeral was predictably packed. McKinley High students stood in tight little huddles around the graveside, their red-rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks speaking of their absolute devastation as they clung to one another for support. Rachel, though stood alone, friendship being the one skill she had never quite mastered.
“I just can’t believe this has happened.”
It took Rachel a moment to comprehend that someone was speaking to her. Nobody ever initiated conversation with Rachel Berry. In class, she sat alone and silent, while all around the other students laughed and joked, indulging in the latest, juiciest gossip of the day. Not that she was surprised; being the most vocally proficient student in McKinley High carried it’s own burden and Rachel understood that most people were quite rightly, fiercely intimidated by her incredible talent.
Raising her brown eyes curiously, Rachel was surprised to see herself staring into Finn Hudson’s handsome face.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel began nervously, knowing the words were meaningless and hollow but not sure exactly what else to say. It wasn’t as if she could chime in with some well intentioned story of a fond memory she had shared with Quinn Fabray because there were none. Quinn had tormented Rachel under her reign as queen of McKinley High and reflecting on that, Rachel wasn’t quite sure why she had attended the memorial service in the first place.
Finn shrugged as though he hadn’t even heard her, her words not even registering in his brain. Fixing Rachel with one last searching look, Finn edged his way through the crowds of people that were milling around, a friend occasionally stopping to draw him into a hug.
Left alone with her thoughts, Rachel’s attention returned to the solitary figure of Quinn’s mother sitting frozen at her daughter’s grave. Her face expressionless, she barely reacted when people came over to offer their words of condolences, the hand they extended awkward and uncertain. Mr. Fabray’s face was arranged in a similar display of shock and horror, his arm wrapped around his eldest daughter’s shoulders, who was crying uncontrollably, her entire body wracked in heaving, miserable sobs.
Despite everything Quinn had put her through, the name calling, the snide insults and the slushie facials, she didn’t deserve this. Nobody did. There had been horrific whispers circulating in the hallways that Quinn had been bludgeoned to death with a hammer, rendering the driveway of the Fabray household a veritable bloodbath.
--
Standing at a distance from the graveside, Detective John Andrews eyed the unfolding scene curiously. The crowd attending the memorial service merged into a single wall of black but Detective Andrews could see the Fabray family clearly, the trio sitting in a miserable huddle by their daughter’s coffin. The family looked devastated, the blonde, young woman who was evidently Quinn’s sister enfolded in her father’s arms and wailing miserably. But then, tears were easy to fake and John wasn’t so easily taken in by an outward display of emotion, however convincing it might seem. Twenty years of working as a hardened detective had taught him the cunning ways of people who had something to hide.
“What do you think?” the detective asked, turning to his partner curiously.
Running a hand frustratedly through her pale-blonde curls, Detective Anne Brown sighed heavily as she regarded the grieving family. “John, that family have just lost their daughter. Their lives are never going to be the same again. So what I think is we should give them time to grieve before we start probing into every dark corner of their lives. Interviewing the family can wait until tomorrow.”
“I guess you’re right.” Detective Andrews agreed gruffly, his steel grey eyes scanning the crowd for a final time before he walked reluctantly away.
--
Finn’s hand was starting to ache from the steady stream of mourners who came up to offer their condolences. The faces were all starting to merge into one. The same plate of untouched chicken salad remained in his hand but Finn couldn’t bring himself to eat it. His stomach turned as he remembered Quinn’s lifeless body lying sprawled out on the ground, her golden blonde hair sticky with blood. It was an image Finn couldn’t get out of his mind, no matter how hard he tried and the dozens of framed photographs of Quinn that smiled down from the walls weren’t helping.
The house was crowded, the air sticky and warm and Finn threw off his jacket and wandered out into the garden. Outside, the night was still and calm and relishing the feel of the cool air on his skin, Finn wandered over to join Puck, who was hunched over miserably on the garden wall.
“This sucks,” Puck muttered dismally, taking an angry swig from the bottle of beer clutched in his hands. “If I could get my hands on the guy who did this...”
Puck’s words trailed away menacingly and Finn could see the venom in his eyes.
“You saw her, right?”
Seeing Finn nod slowly in answer, Puck continued hesitantly. “You don’t think she suffered, do you?”
There was no easy way to answer that question. The doctors who’d attended the scene had all been quick to assure the Fabrays that no, Quinn didn’t suffer and that she had died instantly after the first blow. The anguished expression that had been frozen on Quinn’s face and the wild splatters of red that had daubed the wall had suggested otherwise though.
“She didn’t suffer,” Finn agreed and the tense muscles in Puck’s face softened a little.
The pair sat in comfortable silence after that, Puck’s taking intermittent swigs from his bottle of beer before passing it over to Finn.
“You know, you can come to me if you want to talk, right?” Puck offered quietly, the pair staring into the darkness.
“I know,” Finn replied, draining the bottle of beer before heading back inside the house to meet another wave of shocked and dazed faces.
--
School was generally a hellish experience for Rachel. She was taunted, laughed at, jeered. Her books could end in the garbage, gym clothes flushed down the toilet. In life, Quinn had made Rachel’s existence an utter hell but ironically, the shock that was circulating throughout the school caused by the head cheerleader’s death had offered Rachel somewhat of a temporary reprieve. Students that would normally occupy themselves with terrorizing Rachel, were now too wrapped up in every minute detail of Quinn’s shocking murder, to care that Rachel had received a complementary comment from Mrs. Jacobs on the supposedly enlightening paper she had written about irony in the works of Shakespeare or that she had uploaded a video of herself singing her favorite song from the musical Wicked onto her myspace page.
Walking down the hallway, the usual defiant expression on her face, Rachel’s curiosity was piqued by a sign pinned up on the notice board.
Sign ups for Glee Club.
Considering the abysmal lack of talent in McKinley High, Rachel felt it was her duty to offer her services to the Glee club and only hesitated for a second, before scrawling her signature on the page.
Rachel ★
“What’s with the star?”
Gazing behind her, Rachel braced herself for ridicule but the smile that met her was warm and genuine.
“Hi, I’m Tina,” she introduced herself, a slight stutter in her voice and Rachel found herself smiling uncertainly back. “See you at rehearsal,” the girl shyly smiled, printing her name neatly on the sheet before shuffling meekly into her class.
--
The coffee at the police station was notoriously bad but it contained some much needed caffeine so Detective John Andrews reluctantly poured himself a cup. Taking a sip from the steaming liquid, he was about to grab himself a quick sandwich, when the buzz from his cell phone forced him to return to his desk.
“Detective Andrews.” he answered gruffly, placing the cellphone to his ear and throwing himself into his chair.
“Hello, Detective.” a voice greeted him curtly and Detective Andrews recognized it immediately as belonging to the coroner who had performed the autopsy on Quinn Fabray.
“Hello, Dr. James. What have you got for me?” the detective drawled lazily, taking a grateful sip from his cup of coffee.
“As suspected, the victim’s injuries were caused by blunt force trauma to the head by a framing hammer. Her skull shattered at the point of injury causing immediate death. There’s something else, though,” the woman continued and there was something in her voice that caused Andrews to sit up little straighter in his chair.
“The victim was approximately eight weeks pregnant.” she offered, giving the detective a moment to allow the information to sink in.
“Quinn Fabray was pregnant?” the man repeated disbelievingly. “When I interviewed her parents this evening, they never mentioned that,”
“They probably didn’t know,” the woman offered sadly, informing the detective that she would have the autopsy report sent over to him first thing in the morning before hanging up.
prologue
--