Title: Protect Me From What I Want
Author: takeanotherturn
Rating: PG
Length: 1000+
Spoilers: For Original Song
Summary: Rachel was an unstoppable force, so that just meant she'd have to be an immovable object and if in the end, once the dust settled after they'd collided, Rachel won -or lost, depending on your point of view- Finn, then at least Quinn could say that she'd tried.

The trophy was cheap, nothing more than a hunk of wood and shiny plastic that Mr Schuester hadn't even bothered to get her name inscribed on, but to Rachel it was the most valuable thing in the world. It represented everything she'd always wanted, it meant that she was finally accepted, she was a real part of something special.

She looked up from the award she was not at all obsessively polishing and jumped when her eyes landed on Quinn Fabray, who was hovering silently just inside her bedroom doorway. "Quinn!" she gasped dramatically.

"Sorry, I didn't meant to scare you," Quinn quietly apolgized, inching into the room and closing the door behind her. "Your dad let me in."

"How long have you been standing there?" Rachel asked, pressing a hand to her chest to try and calm her pounding heart.

"Not long." Quinn stopped by the side of the bed, nervously fidgeting with her fingers. "Your song was really good. I knew you had it in you."

"I suppose I should thank you," Rachel began, drawing her legs up underneath her so Quinn could sit down on the edge of the bed. "You're the one that inspired me to write it."

"For Finn," Quinn said flatly.

"Yes. I told you that it wasn't-"

"You know, I didn't say what I said to be mean or to try to hurt you, Rachel," Quinn cut her off in a soft voice. "Believe it or not, I'm actually trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" Rachel repeated, titling her head to the side. "From what?"

"From Finn...and yourself."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean that he really is your kryptonite. When it comes to Finn you're just so completely blinded that you can't see him for what he really is; a Lima loser. Finn is never going to leave this town, Rachel. He is too dumb to go to college and he's too much of a small town guy to ever be happy living in a big city. And I know that if you're with him when the time comes to choose between Finn and New York, you'll choose Finn because he is never going to let you go. He will ruin you."

"You don't know that," Rachel stubbornly denied.

Quinn gritted her teeth, barely restraining herself from grabbing the girl and trying to shake some sense into her. She settled for shaking her own head instead. "Yes, I do."

"So, what, are you trying to say that you're sacrificing yourself so I can go to New York without Finn standing in my way? I find that rather hard to believe, Quinn, you're hardly the selfless type," Rachel said harshly, folding her arms across her chest. She didn't like this Quinn, this sad, world-weary, defeated Quinn. She found herself longing for the old Quinn who sneered and snarled and threatened with fire in her eyes, it was so much easier to ignore her words when they were so obviously coming from a place of petty jealousy.

Quinn shrugged and picked at the comforter, not rising to the bait. "It's not much of a sacrifice, really. It's too late for me now, I'm never going to get out of here. My mom can't afford to send me to college now that she's divorced and all the scholarship offers that were on the table disappeared the moment I gave up my captaincy of the Cheerios. If I'm going to have stay here and marry some guy, it may as well be Finn."

Rachel frowned. No, she did not like this resigned, realistic Quinn one bit. She was depressing. "It doesn't have to be like that."

"Yes, it does." Quinn smiled sadly. "I know what I am, Rachel, I've always known." She saw her own future laid out in front of her every time she looked at her mother. "I tried to fight it but now I realize that there's no point, it's inevitable."

"And what are you?"

"I'm the kid who peaks in high school then ends up miserable in a loveless marriage and pathetically tries to relieve her glory days through her children. That's what I am. That's what Finn is. But you, you're so much bigger than that. You're the picked on loser who grows up to be rich and famous and successful and goes on Oprah and talks about how badly you were treated in high school and makes jokes about how the people who used to bully you are now washing cars for a living...I need you to become that, Rachel."

"Why?"

"Honestly?"

Rachel nodded hesitantly. "Please."

"Because." Quinn squeezed her glistening eyes closed as her voice cracked. "Because when you love someone, really love someone, all you want is for them to be happy, even if it's not with you."

Quinn could see it in Rachel's eyes that she didn't understand, maybe she never would, she still thought this was all about Finn. "And you don't think I can make Finn happy?"

Quinn's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Like I said, he blinds you," she said stiffly. "I really do hope you snap out of your pathetic obsession with him soon. Maybe then you'll finally remember that you're better than him and everybody else in this godforsaken town for that matter."

"Quinn-"

She stood abruptly, she couldn't take this anymore. "I have to go, Finn's taking me out on a date. We're going bowling." Bowling. Quinn loathed bowling; putting her feet in disgusting, ugly shoes that had been home to hundreds of other people's sweaty feet, sticking her fingers in germ infested holes and really it was just such a goddamn stereotypical middle American past time it made her want to gag. But she knew she'd have to get used to it, she saw a couples bowling league in her future; sometimes just thinking about it made her feel like she'd rather die.

"I'm not giving up."

Rachel's determined voice made Quinn stop and lightly bang her head against the closed bedroom door. She didn't know how much longer she could keep this up, she was just so tired of fighting the seemingly inevitable, hoping it would somehow make a difference. Rachel was an unstoppable force, so that just meant she'd have to be an immovable object and if in the end, once the dust settled after they'd collided, Rachel won -or lost, depending on your point of view- Finn, then at least Quinn could say that she'd tried.

"Then neither can I."