Author's Note: Hi readers. This is a Faberry fanfiction story that I've classified as M for later chapters. Right now, it's rated T for strong language and the "adult thematic element" of domestic violence. I plan to make it lengthy and slow-burning, so hop on-board if you'd like to follow an undoubtedly angsty, eventually sexy and overall romantic story about Quinn Fabray and Rachel Berry. The title of this fanfic has been changed from "My Kingdom for a Kiss" to "Gardenia."

Prologue

Judy Fabray had always been the type of woman who needs a man. When she was little, she'd make wedding scrapbooks with her tiny hands meticulously filling white pages with white gowns and faceless princes. All she wanted was a special day and a prince who could protect her from the darkness, because she'd lived so much darkness. Whenever Judy saw the bruises on her mother's face, she didn't dream of escape, or abandon; she dreamt of the day when her handsome, young prince would come to rescue her—to care for her the way her father wouldn't and her mother couldn't.

Judy remembered bringing Russell home to meet her parents for the first time, in vivid detail. She should have known when she saw the way Russell shook hands with her father that she was doomed. Her handsome, young prince with his golden hair and shining eyes was an accomplice to the cruelty of the man who had controlled every aspect of her life.

As she helped set the dining room table and heard the booming laughter of the men in the other room, Judy tried desperately to lock eyes with her mother—to make her mother see her so her mother could assure her that everything would be alright. She may have always been a coward, Judy thought bitterly, but she was never a liar, not to me. Maybe to the doctors and the nurses and the family friends brave enough to whisper their concerns over coffee while her father was at work, but she wouldn't lie to me.

Judy stopped tinkering with the expensive china and gripped the edge of the chair, desperately wanting her mother to look up at her. But the empty-eyed older woman only stared down at the perfect place settings, arranging them carefully, one by one. Building the perfect fantasy of what her life should look like and ignoring what it was. Judy's eyes began to water as she saw her mother reaching down gently, making sure not to slide up her long sleeves and reveal the bright purple bruises from her father's fingers where he had identified her as property. Judy couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her mother's eyes alight. She'd only seen the ghosts of embers when she'd shown her mother her wedding scrapbooks as a little girl.

"Look, mommy!"

"That's nice, dear." Her mother would flinch as her long fingernails scraped the pasted-on doilies covering the petal-pink cover.

"I'm gonna marry a prince, one day, mommy. Just like Cinderella did!"

"GODDAMNIT, FRANCES! GET DOWN HERE!" The bellow from downstairs shook every wall in the house and every defense Frances had as Judy looked up at her, petrified.

"Daddy swore…" Judy didn't yet have the vocabulary to express her terror. "He sounds mean."

Frances heard the heavy thuds of his footsteps scaling the scales.

"Hide!" She grabbed the little one and shoved her in the closet.

Judy still remembers the itch of the taffeta from her princess gowns pushing up against her in the closet as she peered out of the slits to watch her mother cower below her father on the cold, wooden floor. The only thing that kept Judy from screaming was running her fingers over the tiny jewels in the toy crown her father had bought her. She stared down at the silver plastic and prayed for her prince to come rescue them.

Present Day

Quinn Fabray ran her fingers over the cold metal of her tiara, the plastic jewels spelling out "Miss Teen Lima." She willed herself to feel pride, as she lowered it onto her perfectly-coiffed hair and smiled her best pageant smile into the mirror of her vanity.

Quinn remembered how it felt to step forward on that stage, under the blinding lights and be crowned a modern-day princess. Her heart had swelled as she bowed her blonde head. Then she waved to the throngs of adoring people, including Russell and Judy Fabray, clapping in the front row.

That was how it felt to be happy, she thought. In that moment, under the spotlight with that crown, she could see her route of escape. Maybe she wouldn't have to wait for a handsome prince to rescue her. Maybe she could flee Lima all on her own. But after the confetti dropped and her eyes adjusted to take in her surroundings, she felt the cheap metal of the crown dig into her scalp, the vaguely disinterested faces of the people who had nothing better to do in Lima on a Saturday afternoon than watch a couple of Lima losers be princesses for a day. Even the loud boasts of her father about "MY daughter" couldn't encourage her "subjects" to give more of a damn about her than they did about watching the losing McKinley football team that night.

Smile for the cameras, Quinn. All six of them. Smile for the one local news station that might use your pretty face as B-roll if the water-skiing squirrel story gets cut from tonight's broadcast. Smile as you look around at the wood paneling of the drab VFW and know you'll never escape.

Quinn smiled so hard that her aching jaw clenched shut, still throbbing from where Russell had laid into her when she tried to protect Judy from his drunken blows weeks before. She smiled so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks, just like they did with real pageant princesses. The beautiful blonde waved elegantly to the emptying crowd, who could no longer find it in themselves to be parties to a royal fantasy.

When she stepped off the stage, her father wrapped her in his powerful arms and she withered like a violet, looking over his broad shoulders to the proud and sad face of her mother. Quinn had never noticed it before that night, but her mother's eyes seemed hollow—like some light that once burned had been snuffed out.

Quinn surveyed her own striking green eyes in the vanity, searching for signs of light there. She had seen so much darkness in her seventeen years.

"JUDY, FOR CHRISTSAKES, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY TIE? IT'S FUCKING RUINED!"

Quinn's muscles tensed only slightly at the roar from downstairs. She was used to it. And when Judy told her that Russell was moving back in less than a year after he'd abandoned them for a "tattooed freak," she'd expected it. When her mother confessed this to Quinn, it sounded like an apology. Quinn accepted it, as she always had.

She sneered ruefully at Russell's shouting and damned her mother's weakness. "Judy has always been the type of woman who needs a man," she thought.

And her man wouldn't return to her until his youngest daughter was rid of that "bastard" in her belly. Now that everything looked perfect again, Russell returned home as if nothing had happened. An "extended business trip," he had told their congregation. He still maintained his whore on the side, no doubt. But he was eager to regain his image of the perfect husband, with the perfect wife, and the perfect home.

"No," Quinn thought as she adjusted her crown, "I'll never be like my mother."

Her eyes were drawn down to the picture of Finn Hudson—she kept his framed photograph on the smooth white wood of the vanity. She picked up the small, heart-shaped frame in her palm and looked down thoughtfully at the young man, smiling sadly at his good-natured, lopsided grin.

"He'd do." Quinn thought. Finn was kind and seemed to love her with an earnestness that she'd never experienced before. When he touched her, she didn't feel the sting of anger or ego. She didn't feel much of anything, but he was there for her. Quinn wondered idly if she would ever be able to feel anything again after willing her body to become numb for so many years.

Now wasn't the time to worry about this, though—not if Quinn wanted prom queen. And she did. She needed it more than anything. She tossed her long blonde hair back and smoothed out her skirt as she stood before the mirror. Perfect.

Quinn's smile was bright, beaming, until she recalled that one obstacle still stood between her and the prom queen title: Her name was Rachel Berry.