Angeles (Chapter Six)
The Day The Sky Caught Fire
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six: A Game of Chance
London, England, 1348
Rachel hates going to the market now.
She used to find it enjoyable. It used to be something she always did with Brittany, for as long as either of them could remember. They would go to the market and buy the fresh vegetables and it was fun. It was a moment of pure friendship. But ever since Brittany’s confession, about how she can see the angels, about how these angels are watching them - going to the market isn’t fun anymore.
Rachel sighs in defeat and then looks around for Brittany.
She isn’t doing much, and if before, Rachel found that comforting, she doesn’t anymore. Now, Brittany’s silence means something else entirely, and it isn’t comforting. It isn’t pleasant.
It’s terrifying, and while she wishes either Quinn or Santana would just explain to her what exactly is going on, she suspects they won’t be too forthcoming with their secrets. They guard their past well, and it doesn’t surprise Rachel that much that in the end it is Finn who gives her the most explanations.
For now, though, she is just alone with a girl who listens to angels.
Rachel hates the way Brittany is looking at the fog. She hates the look of curiosity that borders on being admiration, hates how intrigued Brittany is with them, hates that these angels that no one else can see are taking her sister away from her. Brittany is her sister, but how is she supposed to compete against angels?
What do these angels even want? She has no idea why Santana and Quinn are even there, except that Quinn believed in herself more than she believed in God and Santana ended up being a casualty of Quinn’s arrogance. It doesn’t explain why those two angels are there, and it doesn’t explain why Brittany -
It doesn’t explain Brittany, either.
Rachel sighs again as she turns to try and convince Brittany to focus on what they were doing. But as she looks at Brittany, she finds the carefree expression gone, replaced by troubled glances towards the fog.
“Wait,” Brittany says quietly, almost under her breath. “I know you want to leave now but just wait a moment, please.”
“Why?” Rachel asks, not bothering to mask the irritation she is feeling. “What is so important this time?”
“Stop it,” Brittany begs, “stop shouting, you’re scaring them!”
“You mean they can hear us?” Rachel shrieks. “Are they listening right now? Are they watching us right now? Brittany, answer me!”
“Stop shouting,” Brittany pleads again, this time sounding close to tears. “Stop it, please, you’re scaring them!”
“You’re scaring me,” Rachel breathes. She swallows as she tries in vain to catch her breath. She didn’t realize she had been panting in the first place, but now, the fear is taking over her, taking the air away from her lungs, taking -
Taking Brittany away from her.
Brittany’s expression is one of complete torment. She keeps glancing between the fog and Rachel, trying to decide who she should listen to, trying to understand which voices are the ones of reason.
She can see how terrified Rachel is, and she isn’t sure who is hurting more - her or Rachel. This isn’t the way it is supposed to go, Brittany thinks frantically, the angels had promised, they said everything was going to be fine, but the look on Rachel’s face is anything but.
“Brittany,” Rachel says, very quietly, as if they are both on the verge of breaking, “you are scaring me right now. Please, just answer my question. Are the angels listening to us right now?”
Brittany wants to lie to her, because she can see what this is doing to her sister. She can see Rachel panicking, can see her trying to rationalize it, and in a way Brittany almost hopes Rachel can come up with answers because she can’t understand it either.
“Are the angels listening to us right now?” Rachel repeats, and now all Brittany can hear in her sister’s voice is panic.
Brittany nods, biting her lip to fight off the tears when Rachel takes a step back, away from her. Her sister’s eyes dart towards the fog then back to her, and Rachel just looks so lost.
“Why?” Rachel breathes. “Why are they listening? What do they want?”
“They just want to know what will happen,” Brittany says, choosing to look at the ground. “They don’t know anymore, because things keep changing, even though they were told that things would always stay the same.”
“What changed?” Rachel presses. “Is it Quinn and Santana? Is it because they fell from the sky? Is that why the other angels are so afraid?”
“It’s not that they fell that frightens them,” Brittany answers. “That was supposed to happen. They knew that.”
“So what’s the problem?” Rachel shouts at the fog. “Why do these angels even care, because they definitely didn’t when I found Qui-“ Rachel stops suddenly and turns to Brittany.
“No,” Rachel pleads, “no, please, no.”
“It’s not that they fell that frightens them,” Brittany repeats. “It’s that we found them. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
& & &
Rachel doesn’t even look at Brittany as they walk home from the market. Her eyes are fixed ahead of them, as if she’s tracing the path, but Brittany knows they have walked this route enough times for Rachel to have committed it to memory by now. Rachel just doesn’t want to look at her.
Brittany can’t really blame her; she can barely look at herself.
She wants to beg for forgiveness but she isn’t sure there is anything left to forgive. She didn’t mean it, she really didn’t mean to hurt Rachel or even scare her but now all she sees is the resentment in her sister’s eyes and -
And now, she can’t see anything else.
Next to her, Rachel is almost shaking from the effort of keeping quiet, of not screaming in frustration at how quickly her life is spiraling out of control. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. Repeat the motions, over and over again, until the anger and resentment become something she can control.
Practice through repetition.
Finding Quinn - Rachel can’t help but remember what Finn had snarled at them, that day, about the past repeating itself. Or how Santana had looked when she started to tell her the story of what originally happened between Quinntus and her, about how their love had been so - epic.
And now… And now Brittany was telling her that she hadn’t even meant to be reunited with Quinn. That the angels had simply made a mistake when they cast Quinn out from the sky.
It isn’t fair.
“I love Quinn,” Rachel eventually snarls at Brittany. Her sister blinks at her in return, a dozen emotions swirling in the blue; but the confusion is the dominant one. Rachel isn’t sure if Brittany is confused that she loves Quinn or that she spoke at all.
“I love Quinn,” Rachel repeats, “and you have no right to say that it’s simply a mistake because we weren’t meant to find them. We did! And it’s your fault. If you had just listened to me when I told you we needed to go home we wouldn’t have found them, we -”
“It’s your fault,” Rachel seethes, “not mine.”
“I love Santana, too,” Brittany says softly. “You’re not the only one who is being told their love is a mistake.”
“Careful,” Rachel snaps, “your precious angels might hear you say that.”
The accusation was intended to hurt and it does - Brittany takes a step back as the air rushes out of her lungs. Her eyes slide over to Rachel and the complete lack of emotion is the final twist of the knife in her heart.
Rachel doesn’t look cold. She doesn’t look angry, or resentful, or upset. She doesn’t look like she’s feeling anything at all.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Brittany pleads. “I’m not the one - it wasn’t my mistake, why are you punishing me for it?”
“Yes,” Rachel says, her voice completely flat. “It is your fault. You were the one who found them. This is on you now.”
The tension between them grows as they walk home. Rachel is quiet, seething in her resentment from being told the angels somehow see her love for Quinn has being less valid than she believes it to be; Brittany is at lost for words as she tries to justify her actions in her mind.
Brittany jerks to a stop in front of the farmhouse.
“Something’s wrong,” she says, and Rachel just scoffs in response. “No, Rachel, wait, please, something is wrong, you can’t go in there!”
Rachel ignores her as she steps through the door. She stops suddenly in the living room, staring aghast at Quinn, who is quivering in the corner. Santana is sitting on a chair on the other side of the room, looking completely unaffected by Quinn’s state of mind.
“Oh no,” Rachel breathes as she rushes towards her angel, “Quinn, what happened to you? What’s the mat-“
Quinn glances up, her hazel eyes wide with panic, and suddenly Rachel finds herself thrown across the room. She lands not far from Santana, who simply looks at her with a raised eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Santana comments and then goes back to watching the fire burning.
“What -“ Rachel stammers as air rushes back into her lungs. “What happened? What did you do to her, why is she acting like this? What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing is wrong,” Santana dismisses casually. “I just fixed her, that’s all.”
“She… doesn’t look very fixed,” Rachel comments as she tries to sit up. “What is - what’s wrong with her?”
“Over a thousand years’ worth of emotions are rushing through her body right now,” Santana tells her. She tears her eyes away from the fire and looks at Quinn. Her look resembles curiosity, intrigue, and Rachel fights back the nausea.
“She had to turn her humanity off, no thanks to you, really, or even God,” Santana continues. “A lot of people were to blame in all of this. But now it’s switched back on, and every little thing she hasn’t allowed to feel before, well, it’s hitting her right now. She can feel everything now.”
“You’re killing her,” Brittany whispers. “Can’t you see that?”
“She’ll live,” Santana shrugs. “She’s been through a lot worse and came out relatively unscarred.”
“Don’t you even care what she’s going through?” Rachel cries. “Look at her, look at how much she’s suffering. Why do you really not care?”
“No, I don’t,” Santana answers. “Besides, it’s your emotions that are hitting her right now, not mine. I’m not the reason she’s in this state. Humans are. If we’re going to assign blame and responsibility here, this is actually on you.”
The irony of having her words thrown back at her is not lost on Rachel.
& & &
Rachel heads to the woods because she needs the solitude, needs the vast empty space just to be able to clear her head.
The pain in her chest won’t go away. Seeing Quinn in that state - with those hazel eyes so wide and scared as every emotion she had turned off was suddenly rushing back into her - just hurts. Whatever Quinn had done in the past to want to turn off her humanity surely wasn’t worth the pain her angel is experiencing right now.
And the worse part is that she can’t comfort her. She can’t reach out and touch her, whisper that everything will be okay, because the very act of feeling - her very own emotions - will just make it hurt even more.
Rachel bites her lip but the tears just won’t go away. She leans against one of the trees and just watches as the snow continues to fall. It’s quiet except for the sound of the wind through the trees.
She loves Quinn. It’s one of the few things she is certain of anymore, but her love - that, she believes in, she will never question. And now… Now she is being told that only their love is a mistake, but she’s also seen firsthand the consequences of being near Quinn.
They always did say love was a weapon. Rachel just never thought it was true.
There is a subtle shift in the atmosphere - not very much, but enough for Rachel to actually notice. She lifts her head, holding her breath as she focuses on just listening to the sounds around her. It is quiet, almost too so, and the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stand up.
“Hello, pet,” Finn says as he walks out of the woods. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
& & &
Finn tilts his head, looking at her. There’s a similar look of intrigue on his face, not that different from the look Santana had been wearing earlier when she was watching Quinn suffer, and it brings back the nausea Rachel had been trying to fight off.
“You look sad,” Finn comments. He sounds almost proud of himself for having identified a human emotion. “Why are you sad? Did Quinntus go away again?”
“No,” Rachel shakes her head. “She’s still here. I think. I’m not sure, actually.”
Finn visibly brightens at her uncertainty, and Rachel scoffs in response.
“Santana turned her humanity back on,” she says.
Finn doesn’t say anything to that, doesn’t even really react. Instead, he just sits down next to Rachel, watching her as the snow continues to fall around them.
“I guess this means you get her back,” she says bitterly. “She’s never going to choose me now, since - I’m killing her. I love her more than anything but that love is killing her and what am I to do, really? I love her so much, and - she physically can’t take that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about Quinntus, pet,” Finn remarks, and he somehow manages to come across as both understanding and condescending at the same time. “She thinks love is a weapon, she always has. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with how Quinntus was raised. It’s just who she is, really. She doesn’t understand love. It doesn’t actually exist, where we come from.”
“I thought you were angels? Or gods?” Rachel asks, confused. “Aren’t they supposed to be all about love and forgiveness?”
“Those are human emotions, pet,” Finn sneers, and the disapproval is written all over his face. But then something flickers across his face and the disapproval fades to something else, something a little softer.
“We’re not supposed to feel those things,” Finn adds almost as an after-thought. He sighs and leans back, watching the snow fall around him. “Emotions make us… want things, and They don’t like it when we want something that isn’t Them.”
“What are you saying?” Rachel asks.
“Quinntus keeps choosing you, you know,” Finn says, very softly. “It’s always been you for her. I mean you don’t know this, what with you being a human now, but I’ve known Quinntus for so long now… And yet it’s always been you. Even when you weren’t there she was still choosing you. It’s sickening.”
“It’s also frightening, in some ways,” he confesses, so softly his voice can hardly be heard over the snow falling. “Because when I say Quinntus always chooses you I mean she always chooses you. Even when - even when you weren’t an option she still chose you. It was written by the Gods that Quinntus and I would always end up together, and yet - and yet she continues to defy them and choose you.”
“What is it about you, pet,” Finn murmurs softly, “that has Quinntus hating fate so much? We are destined to be together and yet… And yet she wants you. Why is that?”
“Shouldn’t she have the right to choose?” Rachel asks. “Why do you act as though everything has to be decided for her? Why can’t you just let her decide?”
“Because, pet,” he answers, “the last time Quinntus decided something on her own, it was when she gave up her soul to save your life.” He turns to look at her. “We all know by now how that story ended, don’t we?”
Rachel flinches as the impact of his words hit her. Finn glances away for a moment as the bitterness fades briefly from his features, replaced by sympathy.
“She always chose you,” Finn repeats. “Even when I was there, even when the Ancient Gods told her not to, even when the Original Prophet wanted Quinntus’ soul in exchange for your safety… She chose you. She chose you over everything.”
“Her soul is back now,” Rachel reminds him. “Things have changed.”
“Not everything, pet.” His smile is a little bitter, a little jaded. “Some things always stay the same, no matter what.”
“Quinntus spent a thousand years paying the price of loving you,” Finn continues. “A thousand years of choosing you even when you’re not there. A thousand years of remembering you and knowing you don’t remember her. A thousand years of looking at common mortals, of saving them, in the hope she will get to save you.”
He gets up and shakes the snow out of his hair. “The Original Prophet will be looking for you, you know, since Quinntus has her soul back,” he tells her as he steps back into the woods. “You should be careful about that.”
& & &
Everything hurts.
Quinn whimpers from where she is sitting in the corner of the room. The sound captures Santana’s attention, who glances at her from the chair.
“Well, you’ve definitely looked better, I’ll admit that much,” Santana comments, a hint of a smile flickering on her otherwise emotionless face.
Quinn doesn’t respond. Her eyes wide with panic, she looks around the room, obviously searching for someone, something that will make the pain just stop. It’s consuming her, taking over her entire body, destroying her mind -
“Now you’re just being melodramatic,” Santana sniffs.
“It hurts,” Quinn whispers. “Everywhere. It hurts.”
“I know.” Her face softens slightly. Then something happens and her face darkens again as a muscle jumps in her jaw. In her weakened state, Quinn can’t quite access Santana’s mind - her thoughts are too vague for her to make out anything concrete.
Quinn just wants to understand why this is happening to her, why Santana decided to turn on her humanity after over a thousand years of not feeling emotions at all. Now, they’re hitting her all at once and she feels like she’s dying.
“I know you don’t understand this right now,” Santana says softly, “but it was honestly the only way. I had to be sure, you know? There’s just simply too much at stake to, well, not take any precautions.”
Quinn whimpers from her spot on the floor, and Santana turns her attention back to the fire.
“You won’t understand,” Santana continues, “but I do. You don’t get the impact of it all. You don’t think of the consequences, you never have, really. You were always so rash, so impulsive. It’s not your fault, really - someone of your capabilities, it’s no wonder you don’t believe in limits. But consequences exist for a reason, Quinn, even for you and me.”
“Make it stop,” Quinn whimpers. “Please, I’ll do anything, anything you want from me you can have, but please, Santana - I’m begging you, make it stop.”
“Don’t you see?” Santana asks softly. She doesn’t speak up - she knows that Quinn can hear her perfectly. Her humanity might be suffocating her but Quinn is still an angel, still has the gifts that come along with that.
“Make it stop,” Quinn repeats, on the verge of tears. “Please. I’ll do anything, just make it stop, turn it off!”
“Even when she wasn’t there,” Santana continues, “you still felt that. You still felt something was missing, and we were both told over and over again you were incapable of feeling anything. That it was dangerous.”
“Quinntus, don’t you understand?” She presses. “They took your soul away from you and thought that these feelings for her would stop. But they didn’t. They were always there, Quinntus. Your love for this one girl was even stronger than the wills of the Gods.”
“If they were wrong about that,” she asks, “doesn’t it make you wonder what else they were wrong about?”
& & &
Don’t do it, Santana’s voice whispers in Brittany’s head. She is alone on the path and yet Santana’s voice won’t leave her alone, keeps begging her to come home, please, it wasn’t like you thought it was and yet no confessions of a mistake.
Quinn and I understand each other, Santana continues to plead. We’ve been through this before, Quinn and I, and you can’t possibly begin to understand but she’s okay now, really, just come home, it’s not safe here, please.
She can hear the desperation grow in Santana’s voice as she keeps walking. She’s too far away for Santana to be able to control her mind but she can feel it, can feel Santana desperately try to manipulate her mind.
Come home, Santana whispers in her mind, please.
Santana falls abruptly silent when Brittany notices a stranger walking in the opposite direction of the path. It’s strange, how Santana goes suddenly from pleading to completely silent. Brittany wonders if she’s quiet simply because she doesn’t want to be talking to her in her mind when there is another person around.
She hesitates as the stranger comes closer. The woman stops and looks at her, a hint of a smile on her face. It is intending to be reassuring but it isn’t, and the hairs on the back of Brittany’s neck stand up.
“Hello love,” Sue Sylvester says quietly, “I’ve actually been looking for you.”
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Disclaimers:
- All I own is my glass of wine
- Title of the chapter is a line from "Angeles" by Elliott Smith
- Special thanks as always to Erika for looking things over/plot discussions
- "I fixed him" is a line from Vampire Diaries 3x05 (Klaus to Elena). I'm not saying that Santana is as much as a complete sociopath as Klaus is.