Fic: No Wise Words Gonna Stop the Bleeding [Part Four]
Title: No Wise Words Gonna Stop the Bleeding [Part Four]
Rating: NC-17
Words: little over 9k
Notes in Part One
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
--
Quinn hates the rain. It’s always raining in this city and Quinn hates it. Right now, the sound of thunder is nearly deafening, the puddles under her feet are too deep to really be called puddles, and the lightning makes her jump each time it flashes across the dark landscape, sawing along her stretched-too-thin nerves with little finesse.
And then there’s Santana, sagged against the brick wall outside of Rick’s and glowering at the whole world. For some reason, in this one singular moment, Quinn hates Santana the most.
She’s going on about Rachel, which is completely normal, but there’s a harshness in the words that’s laden with scotch and nicotine and it scratches against Quinn’s nerves like sandpaper taken to raw skin.
Rain drips off the overhang above them and she flips her phone open and closed, her leg twitching in fear and her brain trying to tune out Santana, trying hard to understand where the words are coming from and not react like she wants to. Because what she wants to do is shove Santana’s face into the brick wall, to make her shut up about Rachel for five seconds because Quinn’s vision is going red and she’s trying not to let all her irrational emotions take over her.
But then Santana breaks the last straw and actually has the gall to imply Quinn would be better without Rachel, could survive without her, actually speaks the words aloud and mentions Rachel and Pike in the same sentence.
She’s pissed and terrified and Santana needs to get the fuck over herself. Now.
So her hand whips out and smacks right across Santana’s already bruised face, cutting her friend off mid-sentence. She should probably be shocked, chagrined, and apologetic but instead hitting Santana feels good. She feels all that emotion snap out of her and seeing Santana’s head whip to the side as a result satisfies her.
“Christ!” Santana shouts. “I already have a damn black eye, Fabray.”
“I get that this is hard for you, that you slept with Brittany and she’s in your apartment and that’s hard. I get it,” she says, low, calm and angry. She jabs a finger out towards Santana and can’t stop the words from coming out, all the things she’s wanted to say to Santana for a long time. “I get that you’re drunk and depressed but let me tell you something. Get over it,” she commands. “Fuck her, kill her, marry her finally. I don’t care. Figure it out.”
Santana’s face is blank and stubborn and to avoid hitting her again, Quinn grabs the lapels of Santana’s trench coat and pulls their faces together.
“So you slept together,” she continues, seething. “So fucking what. It’s probably because that girl is still just as in love with you as you are with her but you’re being too much of a dumbass to do anything about it.”
Santana squirms in her grasp but Quinn tightens her grip and shoves her back against the wall, feeling the muscles in her own arms clenching tightly at the overwhelming urge to do something much worse. “Figure it out, Santana. And stop taking it out on everyone else. Or I’m going to stop cleaning up the pieces and then you’ll really be shit out of luck.”
The moment is tense and harsh and when Quinn looks into Santana’s eyes it’s like they’re not even looking at Quinn, like this moment where Quinn wants everything she’s saying to land and hurt, Santana doesn’t even care. Brittany coming back should have mended them together, should have sealed all the cracks in their lives, but instead it feels like having Brittany back is tearing them apart.
Anger keeps her gaze locked with Santana’s until she hears a car door slam behind her and Puck is standing next to them.
“Are you guys going to make out? Because if so, I’d like to grab my camera,” he says, breaking the silence.
Santana shoves her away and Quinn lets her, steps back and clenches her jaw when Santana shoulders past her and grabs Puck.
Quinn turns, steps out into the rain, and presses on towards home.
--
Quinn took the job at the prosecutor’s office for a multitude of reasons. She had to leave her old job, she had to, but she could have taken a number of other big firm jobs. She was more than qualified, had a near sterling reputation and enough money to draw out the job search for a reasonable amount of time.
But she knew they needed prosecutors and she knew a guy who knew a guy that could put in a good word for her.
She went after the job part from guilt, part from some messed up redemption complex she had suddenly developed. If she could spend the rest of her life putting people in jail maybe she could make up for the all the people she unknowingly and knowingly kept out of jail. It was idealistic and naïve but she took the job to do some good.
She lost her first case on a Tuesday, just a few weeks after taking the job. Losing was new for her. Statistically she was one of the most successful lawyers in the city so hearing the words not guilty ring through the courtroom sent shock through her system like a rush of cold water.
It wasn’t a huge case, but it wasn’t insignificant either. It was your standard homicide - poor young college student, just moved to the big city, slept with her windows open. The guy broke in, took all her stuff while she was right there in bed and then stabbed her seven times.
He wore a mask, there weren’t any fingerprints and no other witnesses. It was a hard case to begin with and the ex-boyfriend they ended up arresting, despite having a pretty shoddy alibi, was hard to connect to the facts on record. Reasonable doubt was a bitch sometimes.
She should have seen it coming, but it still hit her like a ton of bricks, leaving her to stare wide-eyed at the jury foreman and jump back when the judge smacked her gavel decisively.
The rest of the day was a blur. All she could think about was the implications of what losing meant, of the justice she failed to bring for the victim, that she let a murderer back out onto the streets, that even the best of intentions couldn’t stop evil.
At dinner that night, across the table from Rachel at their favorite Indian restaurant, she felt almost robotic. And she couldn’t stop staring at her wife.
Eventually it got kind of awkward.
Rachel reached out and grabbed her hand, eyeing Quinn’s untouched curry. “Quinn, are you okay?”
“Hmm,” Quinn blinked. “What?”
“You’re staring at me,” Rachel said, setting her fork down and leaning forward. “While I understand that my beauty and fame can be overwhelming to some people I’d think you’d have had enough time to get over the shock of it all seeing as we are married and everything. Right now, the staring has gone from flattering to kind of creepy.”
It startled Quinn out of whatever trance she was in and she glanced around the restaurant. “Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand out from under Rachel’s and picking up her fork. She looked down at her food and tried to decide if she could actually stomach eating it.
“Don’t apologize,” Rachel said with a shake of her head. She twisted her fingers around the stem of her wine glass. “You just seem off. Is there something wrong?”
“No, I just,” Quinn lifted her head but the words got caught in her throat when she looked at Rachel.
They were still young and while they certainly weren’t in college anymore, that young victim could have easily been them.
She learned in law school to separate emotion from the job, to see things in black and white. The law was a blunt instrument and getting too emotionally invested in the cases would hamper her ability to remain professional and get the job done.
But right now, with her loss looming over her and staring into Rachel’s concerned eyes, she couldn’t help but see the pictures shift - the gruesome crime scene photos filled with blood and bed sheets and a corpse - shifting into her house, her home, her Rachel. And it was all the same.
It was just another violent crime in a city where that was as normal as the sun rising and setting.
“Quinn?” Rachel’s voice broke through her thoughts and Quinn had to shake her head quickly.
“Sorry,” she repeated, reaching for drink.
“Did something happen?”
Quinn ran a fork through her rice and shifted her foot forward under the table, the toe of her shoe hitting Rachel’s. “I lost a case today. A homicide.”
“Oh,” Rachel said, tilting her head a little bit. “I’m sorry.”
It felt pitying and placating and Quinn had to rub her eyes to resist the urge to snap at her wife. “Whatever, I’m just distracted.”
“Quinn.” Rachel’s voice was soft and understanding and it butted up against Quinn’s self-loathing painfully.
“It’s fine,” Quinn interrupted. “It was just a long day.”
She grabbed a piece of bread from the middle of the table and ripped it into pieces, staring at her food the entire time.
“You’ll get the next one, baby,” Rachel said, low and entreating, her foot settling on top of Quinn’s under the table, tapping down to emphasize her words.
Quinn shook her head. “Santana’s face…”
“Santana did the best she could,” Rachel said. “So did you. Santana knows that. You’ll get the next one.”
Quinn took a deep breath and dropped the bread onto her plate. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t change this case, it won’t stop this guy from killing again.”
“You can’t stop every bad thing from happening to everyone. You did the best you could; you can’t spend so much time dwelling on the past. It will drive you crazy.”
This time Quinn looked back up at Rachel and for a moment it felt like they were talking about something else entirely, something deeper and darker and Quinn tightened her fingers around her knife.
After a brief moment of forcing her breathing to stay even she deflated and looking into her wife’s eyes admitted, “I thought it would feel different.”
Rachel took a sip of wine. “That what would feel different?”
“This job,” Quinn said softly, knowing Rachel was really the only person who would know what she was talking about. “I thought it’d feel better.”
“You’re doing a good thing, Quinn. You’re not always going to win, but you’re still saving a lot of people. You’re helping to put a lot of bad people in jail. You have to focus on the wins, not the losses and do the best you can for each victim. That’s all you can do.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow at her wife and twirled her knife around on the table. “When did you become all wise?”
With a coy shrug of her shoulder and a flip of her hair, Rachel smirked at her. “I was born this way.”
--
She wants to go straight home, but she doesn’t. About three blocks away from Rick’s, she stops and sags against the brick wall of an apartment building, the rain beating down on her head and dripping into her eyes.
She can’t show up at home like this, can’t let Rachel see her so out of sorts. She needs to collect herself, take a deep breath and put on a brave front. Then she can just deal with this Pike thing on her own and keep Rachel out of it.
Rachel was supposed to be the one thing untainted in her life. The one thing not touched by darkness. Everything else was dark and twisty and she doesn’t think she can handle Rachel getting sucked into it all.
Plus, there’s a good chance she’s overreacting. Puck had a point back at the bar. They know Pike is after Brittany, Santana had said as much and that was the general chatter at work. She had seen the files, had read the reports. Pike was after Brittany.
Rachel could just be a coincidence.
But Rachel had a point too. Quinn’s a pessimist. She can’t help it. Life has taught her that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t a dark figure lurking around a corner waiting to kill you. She can’t shake the feeling that this is just her life kicking her in the ass once again.
She takes a deep breath, kicks at a puddle beneath her feet and blinks up into the rain.
Rachel was her shot at something new, at something pure, her everything, really. She could start a family that wouldn’t be broken down by this city, by its people, with Rachel. Pike can’t take that away from her - she won’t let him.
She pushes off the wall and starts walking again. When the rain starts to ebb away she tries not to take it as a sign from God. That’d just be too optimistic.
--
She calls Puck just as she’s getting home.
“Fabray, miss me already?”
“I want a copy of that picture,” she orders.
“Babe,” Puck replies. “You know that’s not how it works.”
“Get me a copy, Puckerman. And soon.”
“Listen, I can’t do that and you know it,” he says, starting to sound a little annoyed.
“You can do it and you will do it,” Quinn responds, walking up the steps towards the front door. “Or I’ll tell everyone about your little problem last week with that bartender over on 8th street. What was her name again? Maggie? Melissa?”
“Okay, okay, shit, Q,” he interrupts and Quinn smiles at her victory. “No need to get nasty.”
“I won’t have to as long as you bring a copy of that picture by my place with your report.” She pauses as she fishes her keys out of her pocket. “Oh, and don’t say anything to Rachel.”
“No, no, whoa, hang on,” he sputters. “Do not get me involved in any of this shit. If you want to go behind Berry’s back, do it yourself.”
“I’m not going behind anyone’s back,” Quinn retorts. “Just keep it quiet if she asks what you’re doing there.”
“Oh hell no,” Puck replies. “I am not getting in between you and that shorty you sleep with. Chick is crazy.”
Quinn pauses outside her door, keys in hand and rolls her eyes. “First, don’t call my wife crazy. Second, who knew Noah Puckerman was scared of a little girl? Sure the guys around the station would love to hear that.”
“Fuck you, Quinn. I’m a badass,” he replies. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
Quinn hangs up and opens her door, a smile on her face that she doesn’t feel.
--
When she gets in the front door, she puts her coat up in the closet right off the entryway before ambling towards the small noise of a television downstairs.
Rachel’s on the living room couch when she turns the corner off the staircase, a coffee mug in her hand and half the contents of their kitchen on their coffee table. Even though Quinn would much rather have all of Rachel’s expensive vegan…things in the fridge, the sight of her wife sends a rush of warmth crashing through her and she smiles despite the haphazard mess.
“Hey,” she greets, happy with how steady her voice sounds.
Rachel’s head snaps towards her and she smiles. “Hi!” Quinn sits down when Rachel scoots over a little and pats the cushions on the couch.
They don’t say anything, but Rachel maneuvers herself down so she’s snuggled against Quinn’s side, sipping her drink and watching the television across the room. Quinn eyes the food all over the table and tries to figure out why it’s there.
“How’s Santana?” Rachel pulls the blanket down from the top of her couch as Quinn toes her shoes off. The warmth of Rachel against her side feels so out of context from the last few hours and Quinn tries to focus on it, tries to hold on to it, and tries to not think of the way her hand felt when it smacked across Santana’s face.
“Fine,” she answers, trying to keep her body from tensing up or anger from bleeding into her voice.
Of course, Rachel has some secret psychic ability so she pulls up a little to look at Quinn and sets her mug on the coffee table, right between a jar of pickles and a tub of peanut butter that Quinn vaguely remembers being ordered to get at two in the morning about a week ago.
“Yeah?” Rachel eyes her in a way that says there’s no way I believe that, but Quinn just nods and smiles tightly.
Before Rachel can say anything else Quinn kisses her. After years of dating Rachel Berry, Quinn knows it’s really the only effective way to get the other girl not to talk.
“Mint tea?” Quinn asks as she pulls away, the taste of Rachel’s mouth still on her lips.
“I wasn’t feeling well,” Rachel replies, licking her lips and eyeing Quinn’s mouth.
Quinn laughs and glances back at the spread on the table. “Was that because you ate half our kitchen?”
Rachel narrows her eyes. “No, I wasn’t feeling well before that.”
Chuckling, Quinn brings her arm over the back of the couch, her hand settling in Rachel’s hair. “Sorry.”
“You should be,” Rachel laughs. ‘Now tell me what you don’t want me to know.”
Quinn jerks back slightly. “What?”
“Your eyes are doing that thing they do when you’re worried about something,” Rachel says, her own eyes darting back and forth over Quinn’s face.
The TV is playing some old musical that Quinn recognizes from Rachel’s DVD collection and she studies it for a second before answering. “It’s nothing really,” she lies. “I just got into it a little with Santana and I’m worried about her.”
It takes a second but Rachel buys it and Quinn lets out a sigh of relief.
“She’ll be okay,” her wife replies, fingers playing with the bottom of her sweatshirt. “She’s just worried about Brittany and the whole Pike situation.”
“Yeah,” Quinn agrees, swallowing against a lump in her throat. “I know.”
The mention of Pike and of Brittany makes her clench her fists and tense up and it takes everything in her to restrain from bolting up off the couch and grabbing Rachel, their suitcases and buying two tickets to the most remote island she can find.
“Okay,” Rachel says, scooting around to face her. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” Quinn replies, shaking her head.
“Nuh-uh, I’m pregnant, not stupid,” Rachel says. “And that look on your face right now is way more than worry about Santana.”
Her eyes blink slowly as she stares at the movie playing on the screen and she forces herself to become professional. She’s a lawyer, a damn good one, and manipulating the truth is her bread and butter. She knows it’s wrong to do this with her wife of all people and she knows how bad it will be if Rachel catches on, but she’d rather keep Rachel in the dark than tell her about her paranoia.
The last thing Rachel needs is more stress and the last thing Quinn needs is to make this fear any more real than it already is. Telling Rachel out loud would definitely make it more real.
“I smacked her,” she said, turning a steady gaze to her wife. The best lie is one masked in truth. “I hit Santana.”
Rachel’s brow furrows. “What?”
“I hit Santana,” she repeats, shaking her head and swallowing. “Things are getting crazy.”
Rachel reaches a hand over and cups Quinn’s cheek, her thumb stroking down her face. “Why did you hit Santana?”
“She was being a bitch.”
An eyebrow arches on Rachel’s face. “Santana’s always a bitch.”
Quinn chuckles at the distaste in Rachel’s expression as she says the last word. “Well she was being bitchier than usual and I just lost it,” Quinn clarifies. “I think it’s just this whole Brittany thing, it’s fraying my nerves.”
Rachel nods, her hand stroking up into Quinn’s hair as she turns into Quinn’s shoulder and yawns. Just like that, Quinn’s mood shifts.
“Tired?” She grabs the hand Rachel has in her hair and holds it between them, stroking her fingertips across Rachel’s palm to twist at the ring on her finger.
Still yawning, Rachel shrugs and shakes her head. “I’m okay.”
“Let’s take a nap,” Quinn suggests.
“I’m fine,” Rachel argues, finally done yawning.
Quinn bites her lips and pulls out a weapon she knows will work. “I could use one and I sleep better with you here.”
Rachel’s gaze narrows like she thinks Quinn’s playing her, but she smiles and shifts around, gesturing with her arms that Quinn join her.
They maneuver until Quinn’s sprawled out on the couch and Rachel plops down between the cushions and Quinn’s side, snuggling into her neck and dropping a leg between Quinn’s.
It’s warm and soft and Quinn sinks into it, blocks out the dark reality and focuses on the here and now and the steady beat of Rachel’s heart against her chest.
--
When Santana’s parents died, her father came to tell her the news. It was sunny that day, the birds were chirping and Quinn had plans to spend the day at a baseball game. Santana’s parents had season tickets to some AAA team that played not too far out of town and on lazy spring weekends, Santana, Brittany and Quinn would drive out there, eat way too many hot dogs and watch mediocre, but nonetheless exciting baseball.
She had jeans and her softball jersey from middle school on, a baseball cap in her hands when her father knocked on her door, pushed it open and told her in a soft voice that he had something to tell her.
When he told her that Mr. and Mrs. Lopez died in a car crash, it was almost clinical and detached. There was no emotion in his voice - no shock or sadness. Just fact and certainty, like he was delivering the six o’clock news.
Quinn dropped down onto her bed and stared at her carpet with wide eyes. She didn’t even hear her father leave the room.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, just staring, but eventually she shook out of it, grabbed her phone and called Brittany.
“I think she’s done crying at least,” Brittany said when she answered.
“I’m coming over,” Quinn said.
“Okay.”
Halfway out the door her father stopped her. “Are you going to see your friend?”
She nodded and shifted back and forth on her feet, eager to get going.
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
She didn’t have time to think it was weird, but by the time they got to Santana’s house, a bouquet of flowers her father insisted on getting in hand, Brittany turned them away with a sad shake of her head. Brittany’s eyes shifted guiltily to Quinn’s father and she knew exactly why Santana didn’t want to see them.
They left the flowers in the kitchen and as they were turning to leave, Brittany grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Sneak back,” she whispered.
Quinn nodded and left with her father.
--
After dinner that night, Quinn opened the window to her bedroom and followed a path she had on more than one occasion. She ran the few blocks between their houses, skipping through familiar lawns and into a familiar backyard.
Creeping around to big tree outside Santana’s window and climbing it was instinct. Halfway up she realized she could probably just go to the front door. There were no parents to sneak around anymore after all. The thought was sobering and depressing and Quinn felt totally off balance.
She managed to make it through the window, dropping down into Santana’s bedroom and shutting it behind her. Her friend was on the floor, her back against the wall and she had a small green rubber ball in one hand, throwing it against the opposite wall and catching it as it flew back.
Quinn watched the ball fly through the air a few times and waited for Santana to acknowledge her. When she didn’t, Quinn caught the ball and stepped in front of her friend.
“Where’s Brittany?”
Santana pressed her head back into the wall and stared up at her, a redness to her eyes and exhaustion in her shoulders. “Downstairs,” she answered.
Quinn raised an eyebrow before moving to sit down on the floor next to the other girl. “Why?”
“Making cookies I think,” Santana said, shrugging. “Fuck if I know.”
It was silent after that and Quinn didn’t really know what to do or what to say and she hated how comatose Santana seemed, so unlike the friend she knew that she didn’t know how to react. Santana was a bitch, a major bitch (and so was Quinn, really, so that worked out), but she wasn’t ever really this, this weird, silent, robotic thing that just stared at the opposite wall.
Quinn didn’t know how to make it better despite a fervent desperation to do just that.
She rolled the ball around in her hands and turned her head to look at Santana. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About your parents.”
Santana swallowed loudly and her fists clenched but she didn’t move her gaze towards Quinn. “Shit happens,” she bit out.
Quinn darted her hand out and grabbed Santana’s fist, opened her mouth to say something, but before any words came out Brittany opened the door, the warm smell of cookies wafting in behind her.
Brittany took one look at them, walked over to the other side of Santana and reached out to grab her other hand, setting a tray of cookies down on the floor.
Santana didn’t move, didn’t say anything, didn’t really acknowledge either of them but she didn’t shrug their hands away and the three of them sat there in silence.
Hours later, Brittany’s head on Santana’s shoulder and Quinn nearly asleep, Santana said the first thing that night that wasn’t an answer to a question.
“The cookies are cold.”
Brittany jerked up and stared at her girlfriend as Quinn turned to her, glancing down at the plate of cookies Brittany had brought up earlier.
The two blondes locked gazes and Quinn knew there was confusion on her face.
Santana started laughing, deep, loud laughter from the pit of her stomach that only made Quinn more confused.
She didn’t stop laughing either, not for long minutes and it wasn’t long before Brittany joined her, confused giggling pouring out of her. It made Quinn chuckle too.
Eventually Santana took a deep breath, wiping at her eyes as her laughter trailed off. She set her jaw and turned to look at Quinn, a smile on her face.
“Okay,” she said, before grabbing a cookie and standing up. “Let’s go do something.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Quinn said, standing up.
“So?”
Brittany stood up as well, also grabbing a cookie on her way.
“So, don’t you, I mean, shouldn’t we,” Quinn stumbled on the words, feeling completely out of her element and not knowing what was going on.
Santana stared at her, her expression serious again. “My parents are dead.”
Quinn’s jaw dropped open in surprise and she jerked back. “S, I’m so sorry,” she started, but Santana held up a hand to stop her.
“Don’t say sorry. That’s fucking stupid. I’m sick of people saying that to me,” Santana said. “There was nothing you could have done, don’t apologize for something you didn’t even fucking do. You can do something for me now. You can fucking do something with me so I can stop thinking about it, okay?”
“Yeah,” Quinn said, nodding. “Okay.”
Brittany grabbed Santana’s hand and smiled at Quinn. “Let’s go do something.”
Santana took a deep breath. “Let’s.”
--
The doorbell rings and Quinn jerks awake, blinking sleepily as she looks around. Her neck aches where it’s jammed up against the arm of the couch and Rachel’s sprawled on top of her, snoring softly. She wraps her arms tightly around her wife and shifts out from under her, turning to lay Rachel back on the couch.
Her wife mumbles and licks her lips as they move but doesn’t wake and Quinn presses a kiss to her forehead before moving quickly upstairs towards the door as it rings again.
Puck steps past her when Quinn opens the door and looks around, presumably for Rachel.
“She’s asleep.”
Puck lets out a bark of laughter. “Guess I don’t have to deal with shorty, then.”
Quinn rolls her eyes and holds her hand out. “Did you bring it?”
He reaches into his jacket and pulls out an envelope, passing it to Quinn wordlessly.
The picture is there inside when she opens it and Quinn’s hands shake a little when she sees it again. “Thanks,” she says.
Puck winks and grins. “You owe me,” he says with a leer.
“Go away,” she commands.
He laughs again but backs up and puts his hands up. “Don’t do anything dumb,” he says when he gets to the door.
She whips her head up to look at him. “What does that mean?”
He shakes his head. “Everyone fucking thinks Santana’s the one that does stupid shit when she’s pissed and scared but you’re like a fucking sleeper cell. Don’t try and act like you asked me for that just to stare at it some more.”
“I just wanted a copy,” she replies, glaring at him.
“Yeah sure, whatever. Just remember what your fucking job is,” he warns.
“I know my goddamn job, Puckerman, now get out of here.”
His expression darkens and he takes a step forward. “I’m serious, Fabray. Cop,” he says, pointing to his chest before pointing back at her. “Lawyer. You gotta let us do our jobs. You go off and do something stupid and get yourself involved in this mess you will break Santana, do you hear me?”
Quinn exhales through her nose and stares at him.
“The last thing she fucking needs right now is to be worried about shit with you too, okay?”
“I know,” she whispers, pride flowing out of her all of a sudden, and she feels her shoulders drop a little. She glances to the staircase, and pictures Rachel snuggled into the couch, curled into herself. “I just wanted to take a look at it, honestly. This involves me now too and an extra pair of eyes can’t hurt.”
Puck reaches out and sets a hand on her shoulder, his expression serious and unmoving. “We’re going to take care of this; you don’t have anything to worry about. That’s how it works. We catch the bad guys and you find them a nice spot up at the county prison.”
She nods. “Yeah, I know,” she says even though she’s having a hard time trusting in that system right now.
Puck leaves and Quinn walks back down the stairs and watches Rachel sleep, her wife’s fingers clenching and unclenching on the fabric of the couch, before Quinn retreats to her office.
--
In the lower left drawer of her desk there’s a false bottom. It may be a little paranoid to have a false bottom drawer on one side and a locked drawer on the other, but that’s beside the point. She keeps random stuff in there, stuff she doesn’t like other people to see but nothing too incriminating. The only thing she’d rather Rachel not find is the unregistered pistol hidden towards the back.
There’s a small pack of ammo next to it and Quinn raises her eyes to the door to her office before pulling it out and placing it next to her. She runs her fingers over the tips of the bullets and takes the gun out, the weight of it heavy in her palm.
She’s always been a good shot as a result of hunting trips with her father as a child and then later when Santana and Puck decided it was imperative she learn how to shoot a gun. In another closet in their house there are licensed guns - a few rifles and pistols, even an old revolver from Puck, guns that Rachel knows about and demands be kept away from her numerous awards and her in general.
This one was a gift from her father and something she both hates and loves at the same time. When she got it, she didn’t think anything of it, she didn’t understand how gun laws worked and frankly, she trusted her father, didn’t think he could do anything wrong.
When she found out differently, she still kept it - for whatever reason she couldn’t get rid of it. She’d shot it a few times when she was younger and used to play around, but it hasn’t been fired in years.
As she shifts the gun around in her hand and eyes the bullets a dark wave washes over her and a cold sweat breaks out across her body. She can understand wanting to kill Pike - but she’s sitting here with a goddamn illegal weapon in her hand while her wife is asleep in the next room like she’s going to do it.
What the hell is she doing?
The picture of Rachel and Brittany is lying on her desk, staring at her like a dark omen and she swallows against a bitter taste in her mouth.
She doesn’t know how long she sits there holding the gun and staring at Rachel’s smiling face, but she snaps out of it eventually.
After throwing the gun back in the drawer along with the ammo, she stands up and nearly slaps herself. The glass of scotch she throws back soon after settles warmly in her stomach and she sends a silent prayer to a God she's having a hard time believing in.
--
When Santana got shot, Quinn was in class. Puck was waiting for her afterwards, leaned up against the wall outside her classroom with a grim expression.
She jerked back in surprise when she saw him.“Should I be creeped out that you know my class schedule?”
He didn’t even crack a smile, or a leer or any of the other normal Puck faces. It was one of the more suspicious moments of her life.
“We gotta go,” he said, pushing off the wall and walking towards her. He latched on to her elbow and pulled her down the hall.
Her eyebrows shot up and she pulled away from him abruptly, nearly hitting a passing student with her elbow. “What the hell, Puck?”
“We gotta go,” he repeated, glaring at her and cocking his head down the hallway.
“Have to go where exactly?” She shifted her bag on her shoulder.
“The hospital,” he said and she could see the way his jaw was clenched and the red around his eyes.
Then, feeling like a complete and total idiot for not putting two and two together and getting four, she looked around him. “Where’s Santana?”
Puck took and shallow breath. “We gotta go,” he said.
Her eyes went wide before she shot down the hallway toward the exit.
--
“Why didn’t anyone call me?” Her voice was low and angry and she fought tears that were threatening to fall.
Puck slid his hand up and down the steering wheel and tapped his fingers on the gear shift between them as he drove. “She was in surgery. I waited until we knew she’d be okay to call Brittany and then…”
“And then what?” Quinn shifted to look at him.
“I was about to fucking call you but I decided you’d need a ride anyway.” Quinn watched him swallow as his eyes took in the road and the car sped up a little. “So I just came over and got you.”
“You should have called me right away,” Quinn replied.
“There wasn’t any time,” Puck answered, glancing at her briefly. “It all happened really fast.”
“What happened exactly?”
“It was dumb,” Puck mumbled. “The guy had fucking lucky pure, dumb luck. If I had been there two seconds earlier…”
Quinn put her hand over his and held tight. They were silent the rest of the ride.
--
Quinn barreled through the hospital hallways, turning a corner and nearly tripping when she spotted a familiar figure standing outside one of the rooms.
“Britt,” she let out as she grew closer.
Brittany’s head snapped up to look at Quinn, a relieved sag noticeable in her shoulders as she did so. “Quinn.”
“Hey,” Quinn said softly, stepping in front of her. “You okay?”
Brittany bit her lip and looked down the hallway, smiling at Puck as he passed them to enter the room before looking back at Quinn. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
Quinn nodded and swallowed thickly before pulling Brittany towards her into a tight hug. The taller girl pressed her forehead down into Quinn’s shoulder and clenched her fingers into Quinn’s back.
“It’s going to be okay,” Quinn murmured even though she didn’t really feel it. She itched to get inside and see Santana alive for herself, but she could feel the way Brittany was shaking and it felt good just to stand there for a minute.
Finally they detached from each other and Quinn took a long breath, looking into Brittany’s eyes. “You okay?”
Brittany nodded but Quinn could see the lie. There were tears forming in the bottom of Brittany’s eyes and she was biting down on her lip to stop them from falling.
Quinn glanced towards the door to the room and strained her ear to hear Puck and Santana talking. She wanted to go in, but just hearing Santana speaking was calming her nerves and she needed to take care of Brittany too. Santana wasn’t around to do it.
“Let’s go get coffee,” she said, linking her arm through Brittany’s and steering her away.
--
On the lower level of the hospital, next to the entrance to the heart institute, there was a 24 hour McDonald’s. Quinn liked to poke fun at the irony, but as she tugged Brittany inside and ordered two coffees (one with double cream, double sugar) she was grateful for its existence.
They sat at a table near two big windows in the back of the restaurant and Brittany turned to watch the collection of nurses smoking outside, gathered together under an overhang to escape the rain.
Quinn watched them too for a moment, sipping her coffee and letting the liquid warm her body on its way down.
After awhile she broke the silence. “Do you know what happened?”
Brittany bit her lip and spun her coffee cup around on the table. “Um, she was off-duty,” she replied, her voice kind of shaky. “She was supposed to meet Puck for drinks and she stopped into that mini market for cigarettes, you know, near Rick’s?”
Quinn nodded as her leg bobbed under the table.
“And, um,” Brittany looked outside for a second before looking back. “There was a guy in there with a gun.”
Quinn knew the store well, Santana stopped in there a lot to grab cigarettes or a post-work energy drink. She could almost imagine the scene without Brittany having to say anything more.
“She tried to stop him,” Brittany chuckled. “Duh.”
Quinn laughed a little and took another sip of her coffee while Brittany cleared her throat and scraped a nail across the table.
“Anyway, um, he had a friend,” Brittany continued. “Santana says he came from her right and he got her before she even had a chance to see him.”
Quinn nodded, feeling her eyes burn at the image of a bullet hitting Santana. She looked down and steadied herself on a deep inhale.
All of a sudden Brittany’s hand was over hers, warm and solid on the table and Quinn’s head came up to look at her. “It’s okay Quinn,” Brittany said, a small smile on her face. “Sometimes bad things just happen.”
It was strange to have the tables turn that quickly, with Brittany all of a sudden comforting her but she let the words sink in nonetheless. Looking into Brittany’s blue eyes, she could hear the rain from outside, see Puck’s face awash with guilt and pain and almost imagine Santana in that market - there only by chance.
Quinn pursed her lips and shifted her eyes to study the rain again. “Yeah, I guess they do.”
--
Santana shows up not that long after Quinn hides away in her office. Her friend stumbles through an atrocious apology and while the urge to smack Santana again still simmers underneath her skin, she takes a deep breath and forgives her.
They’re in a bad place right now and Quinn feels like it’s just the beginning. It’s a dark, ominous feeling, a low pressure at the base of her neck and the last thing she needs right now is to be at odds with Santana.
Her fingers are tracing the picture Puck brought over when Santana finally notices it. Pointing to it, she asks, “So, what did Berry say about the picture?”
She opens her mouth to say something, to cover up the fact that she hasn’t told Rachel about it at all, but nothing comes out and Quinn kicks herself because come on she’s built a career on being able to talk her way out of situations.
“You haven’t told her,” Santana says, her voice surprised and accusing at the same time.
“No,” she admits, pursing her lips as she sets the picture down and leans back.
“Q, I know Berry. She won’t like that.”
“Yeah,” Quinn agrees, the image of her wife red-faced and indignant both adorable and worrisome. It brings a small smile to her face. “Probably not.”
“Tell me what?” Rachel’s voice breaks in and Quinn jumps up in her chair. “What won’t I like?”
“Nothing,” she blurts out, her eyes widening when she realizes how telling that answer is.
“Quinn Fabray.” Rachel draws the name out and darkens her expression. “Tell me.”
The picture under her fingertips feels hot and huge and she wants to crumple it up and throw it in the trash, but she looks at Rachel’s face and decides full disclosure would be more beneficial in the long run. She slides the photo across the desk towards her wife and points at it, waiting for Rachel to come over and pick it up.
“Pike’s been following you.” She swallows. “Well, he’s been following Brittany and you. And we don’t know why.”
Rachel studies the picture and Quinn watches the expression on her wife’s face, tries to stop her heart from beating faster when she thinks about what that picture could mean.
“You’ve seen my legs, right?” Rachel asks suddenly, holding the picture out for inspection.
Santana laughs from her seat and Quinn gives a small smile, before narrowing her eyes at her wife. “Rachel. I’m being serious.”
“And so am I,” she argues. “This is a picture of me and Brittany. There's been no other proof that he's singled me out, right?” Quinn sees Santana shake her head. “Right, so he was watching Brittany and saw her associating with her wealthy, successful and highly attractive friend, Rachel Berry, who happens to be married to the equally successful and famous attorney, Quinn Fabray.”
Quinn smiles and shakes her head, but Rachel continues on, looking at Quinn like she really shouldn’t have to explain the obvious to her.
“What self-respecting photographer wouldn't take the picture? Even stalkers have standards. As much as it pains me to admit, and I assure you it does, I highly doubt he's actually after me."
Santana agrees with Rachel and if it were any other situation Quinn would spend more time being shocked at that but the desperation to get through to Rachel is too strong. “Still, we don’t know for sure and until then we have to be on our guard.”
Rolling her eyes, Rachel comes to sit on Quinn’s desk, reaching out to trace a finger over her eyebrow. It was a familiar, comforting gesture that Rachel liked to use to calm Quinn down.
“It’s cute that you’re worried about me.”
When she feels Santana open her mouth and she can already hear the nasty jibe about to come out, she cuts a glare in her friend’s direction to shut her up before refocusing on her wife. “Rach, this guy is serious,” she explains, trying to convey how important this is. She runs her hand up Rachel’s thigh before stopping at her hip, her thumb tracing over the edge of Rachel’s stomach. “I don’t want to take any chances, not with you.
She sees it work, hears the resigned sigh escape Rachel and lets out her own breath of relief. "Fine, but I have a very busy schedule to maintain. We're starting up full rehearsals this week and I can't have your little stalker paranoia interfering with the show's production."
Quinn gets Rachel to agree to be more careful but she can’t fight the worry that hums through her veins, the desperate need to steal Rachel away, lock her in a closet until all this is over. When Rachel drops a kiss on her forehead, she has to clench her fists tightly against the urge.
Rachel leaves to make them something to eat before Quinn loses restraint and she focuses on Santana, pumping calm into her body, and she tries to act like her heart isn’t in the other room.
“Look,” Santana says, cutting into her thoughts. “Why don’t you guys just come stay with me and Britt for awhile.”
It’s kind of shocking that Santana would offer that, but Quinn can’t deny how appealing the offer is. Santana’s got cops all over her building and she’d have two more sets of eyes watching Rachel. Being with friends would be nice and secure and beyond all that it’s an excuse to see Brittany. She doesn’t know how long that opportunity will last.
They walk out to collect Rachel and head out when Quinn finds the courage to ask the question that’s been burning in her mind ever since Santana showed up in her office.
“How’s that going by the way?” She crosses her fingers that maybe her two best friends have figured their shit out, but she stops the hope from going farther.
Santana looks away and furrows her brow, her whole stance emanating confusion and Quinn doesn’t really know how to read that. “S’okay I guess.”
Quinn raises an eyebrow. “You guess?”
“I don’t know,” Santana replies, finding something seriously interesting on the wall - a wall filled only with wedding pictures Quinn knows hold absolutely zero interest for Santana, as she was there and spent most of her time complaining and the rest of it ignoring Rachel. “She’s…she’s still in love with me.”
Quinn feels happiness flood through her quickly and a smile spreads across her face. She already knew Brittany was still in love with Santana, but if her friend is admitting it here that means they’re getting somewhere, it means Brittany at least said something and maybe Santana did too. It means something.
It’s clear from the way Santana talks and the way she looks sheepish and confused - a state only Brittany could put her in - that her friends haven’t figured it all out yet, but Quinn lets that little piece of hope Rachel instilled in her grow. It’s hard to keep control of it, but she manages.
When they get to the kitchen she’s still smiling, thinking that maybe that dark ominous feeling she had earlier was really just paranoia, just the unbalance caused by all the crazy things that had happened lately.
But then Santana twirls and looks confused and it’s then that Quinn realizes the space is empty. That Rachel, who was supposed to be cooking, is nowhere to be found.
Her stomach drops, and turns over and she feels like her heart is going to bust out of her ribs with how fast it’s beating.
“Rachel?” Quinn yells out, watching Santana look around for the girl too. When nothing greets her call, her throat goes dry, but she repeats the name, hoping Rachel maybe went to the bedroom for a nap, or ran to the bathroom or anything but what she thinks happened, anything but confirmation that this dark feeling creeping up her spine is something real and terrible.
She takes a deep breath and tries to convince herself that it’s just paranoia again, that she’s just overprotective and a complete spaz right now and she needs to calm the fuck down.
She’s halfway out of the kitchen, heading towards the bedroom when Santana calls her back in and points to a note on the table. Rachel’s handwriting is distinctive even from paces away and Quinn knows exactly what it says before she even reads it.
It’s not that she’s psychic or anything, but there are just times in her life when she knows exactly what’s going to happen like a movie playing in her mind. Quinn had learned early on that if there was a worst possible situation, chances were it would happen to her. It had been this way since she was a kid and right now, when the sharp sound of screeching tires burst through the kitchen and a woman’s yell following soon after, Quinn feels her vision waver and her knees give out.
She can see it all clear as day and even though she's inside, far away from whatever's happening outside, she knows it's Rachel. She can feel it on every inch of her, and it feels like her heart stops in that moment.
It takes a second before she’s bursting out of the kitchen and out the front door, knowing her worst fears are about to come true, just like always.
She hears Santana’s footsteps behind her, beating out the door and down the steps but the sound gets drowned out when she gets to the street.
Strangely, the first few seconds of taking in the scene feel detached and distant, like she’s walking any number of crime scenes she had seen in her life. There’s blood and terrified witnesses, confusion and curiosity thrumming through the crowd and in the middle of it all, a victim.
Quinn doesn’t see Rachel. Not really. She sees brown hair and smooth legs and her whole world, spread out across the pavement, bleeding.
Her knees hit the ground near Rachel but she doesn’t register pain. Instead she just stares at her wife and runs her hands in the air, clenching her fingers absently, unsure of where to put her hands. She feels helpless and shocked and she keeps thinking that maybe if she could just wake up, this nightmare would stop feeling so real.
It’s supposed to be paranoia. Strange, irrational paranoia bred from her job, from her hyper exaggerated protective instincts and from a deep distrust of humanity. It isn’t supposed to be real, it isn’t supposed to actually happen. They’re supposed to laugh about this, years from now, laugh about how worried Quinn was when nothing terrible happened.
Santana is barking into a phone behind her, but for some reason all Quinn hears is the sound of Rachel singing. Like actually singing.
It’s this weird, suspended reality type of moment because Rachel’s lying in front of her, a pool of blood spreading under her hair and a streak across her forehead. Her eyes are closed and her lips aren’t moving but Quinn hears it clear as day. Santana’s saying something to her from her position behind Quinn but the words are drowned out, swept away in place of the round flowing tones of Rachel’s voice.
It’s some stupid song that Rachel likes to sing in the mornings, in the shower or in the kitchen. It’s always the same song. No matter where Quinn hears it, on the radio, on TV, in the elevator at the mall, it always reminds her of mornings - of early morning sunlight, the smell of brewing coffee and the sound of Rachel’s laughter in her ear as she interrupts the singing with a kiss.
It’s absurd, but she can’t shut it off and the sound of it actually makes everything that much worse because Rachel’s lips aren’t moving and her eyes aren’t opening and the only thing keeping Quinn from passing out right now is the slow but steady movement of Rachel’s chest.
She focuses on that, watches it move up and down and her hands grab one of Rachel’s, happy to find it warm and soft.
“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs, leaning down over her wife and clutching her hand closer to her chest. “It’s going to be okay.”
Suddenly, the sound of sirens cuts through her thoughts, stopping the sound of Rachel’s singing abruptly and Quinn wonders for a second how long she’d been kneeling there.
Santana grabs her arms and pulls her up but she resists the tug, dropping all her weight and scrabbling to hold onto Rachel’s hand, unwilling to be separated from her.
“No,” she mumbles, pulling away from Santana. “No.”
“Q,” Santana says, wrapping her hands back around Quinn’s biceps and bringing her mouth close to Quinn’s ear. “They gotta get her to the hospital. You have to move.”
She swallows and her eyes widen, but she lets Santana pick her up and move her away, her hands feeling cold without Rachel’s between them. In a heartbeat, her wife is surrounded by paramedics, setting down a stretcher and boxes of medical supplies Quinn can’t identify.
Her eyes sting so she brings up her hand to rub at them, brow furrowing when her fingers come away wet. She hadn’t even noticed she was crying.
The paramedics are lifting Rachel up on a stretcher, black straps holding her into place and Santana lets go of her arms as they both move towards the ambulance. They let her into the back of the truck with little fuss, but one of the medics holds his hand out to Santana, halting her.
“Sorry, detective, family only,” the guy says and Quinn almost wants to ask how the hell he knows she’s Rachel’s family until she realizes being one of the city’s most famous power couple has its advantages. Between Rachel’s career and her own they may be overexposed but Quinn’s never been happier for it than at this moment.
Santana jerks back, her eyes darting to Quinn and her mouth open in protest, but Quinn shakes her head to silence her.
She wants Santana to come with them, that’s for sure, but she needs to leave as soon as possible, she can’t have an argument that would stall them right now. Every second they sit there not moving feels like an eternity and Quinn feels the life bleeding out of Rachel just as tangibly as she would her own.
The guy is wrong, Santana’s family and Quinn needs her, but right now her sanity, her happiness, everything she’s ever cared about is laying on a stretcher with a head wound.
“Do your job,” Quinn commands, her voice shaky as she stares at Santana. “You have to do your job.”
Santana locks gazes with her and nods once, jaw clenched. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Quinn swallows. “I know,” she says, before turning to the medic near the door and saying that they’re ready to go.
Santana turns on her heel and flips her phone back open, walking over to a few uniformed cops that arrived with the ambulance.
The doors close and the truck starts to move, the silence deafening, as Quinn focuses once again on the rise and fall of Rachel’s chest and tries to ignore the ache in her own as they ride to the hospital.
She’s never felt more lost in her entire life.
Part Five