This was written in a flurry of angsty bad moods. I cannot promise that what lies below this line break is quality, but if you think it is, please let me know. Thank you for reading what is probably the 4,000th follow up to On My Way.

It's a miracle she's alive.

That's what she hears her mother murmuring when her eyes open, squinting and still swollen, and she can't believe she's still here.

She remembers the squealing of her tires, the crunch of glass, and that split second as the truck actually made contact that she knew everything was over. When you're on the brink of death, she had found, your entire life doesn't pass before your eyes. No, you don't get the privilege of reliving those treasured moments. It's more haunting, more sinister than that. You see the moments yet to be; dancing with her friends at Nationals, her first steps on Yale's campus, walking down the aisle at her wedding, holding her newborn child, a successful career. Rachel. It's cruel really, the sickening twist the subconscious plays, teasing with hopes for moments that will never come.

She remembers that moment, when she closed her eyes and hoped for the best: a painless passing.

But here she is now, lying in a hospital bed with an IV in her arms, tubes in her nose and throat, and her mother praying at her bedside.

"Oh Quinnie," Judy breathes. "Oh sweetheart. You're alive. I can't…you're still with us." She's crying now. Tears gather at the corners of her eyes and Quinn watches her mother take her hand into her own. She expects to feel the cool softness of her mother's skin, or the tight clench of her grip. Instead there's nothing. There's no sensation and she doesn't understand. She tries to wiggle her fingers, flex her toes, bend her arms. Nothing.

She tries to scream but she can only croak and her throat is so sore and nothing makes sense. Her mother's eyes are wide and Quinn watches her grip her own hand tighter and sees her nails digging into her palm.

"Can you feel that, Quinnie? Please tell me you can feel that. Please!"

Her doctor arrives minutes later.

Paralyzed.

Suspected, but they couldn't know for sure until she came out of her coma and closer to breathing on her own. In her case paralysis is a small price to pay for her life, so say the nurses who pass namelessly in and out of her room, pricking her with needles and adjusting tubes she can't feel. C-5 quadriplegia. She will regain the ability to rotate her shoulders and her wrists. They say she'll be able to use an electric wheelchair, maybe learn to use a manual one.

They fill in the blanks. She was rushed to the hospital after the truck driver called for an ambulance. He didn't see the stop sign, blew right through the intersection, didn't even register the little red compact until he saw the car flip.

She has casts on her neck, her arms and leg, stitches on her face and torso, and scabbed cuts and scrapes all over her body. She died on the operation table, they say. They revived her, shocked her heart and tricked it into beating again.

"But what about my body? My arms and legs. This is temporary, right?"

When her doctor shakes his head she almost wishes they hadn't toyed with nature's course.

When visitation isn't restricted to family members only, the first person at her bedside is Rachel. She's crying before she even crosses the threshold into the room and it looks like she's about to turn around and walk back out.

"Hey," Quinn says hoarsely.

"Quinn, I'm so sorry. I-I'm so sorry I did this to you." She rushes forward and clasps one of Quinn's limp hands in both of hers. She wonders if Rachel has rehearsed her dramatic entrance. She almost laughs, but she can't because god, she would give anything to feel Rachel's touch. She coughs instead and feels her breathing tube scratch the back of her throat.

"Don't say that," she demands when her breathing is steady. "You didn't do this to me. You weren't driving that truck."

"But it was my wedding! If it weren't for my wedding you wouldn't have…I ruined your future, Quinn." She's shrieking. She's getting hysterical. "I wanted you there, but it wasn't worth your life."

"I'm paralyzed, not dead, Rachel." She swallows hard. Is there really a difference between the two? "I wanted to be there, you know," she whispers, "for you. I wish I could have been there for the wedding. I bet you looked beautiful."

Rachel shakes her head. "We've postponed the wedding. How could I possibly get married in light of such a tragedy?"

And she's relieved. At least something good is coming out of this.

Visitors filter in over the course of the coming weeks. Brittany and Santana, who she thought would come shortly after Rachel's visit, don't make an appearance until well into the second week.

Santana shuffles awkwardly toward her. She looks like she'd rather be anywhere but in the small room crowded with beeping machines and fragrant flower arrangements. "Hospitals suck. When are you going to get out of here?"

"I don't know," she snaps. "I seem to be the last to know everything. It seems like you all knew that I'm a cripple before I did. Maybe forever. I don't know what the hell else I'm going to do-"

"Q, don't talk like that. Artie says to say handicapable. It's nicer."

"Yeah, but it's not true, is it?" She's boiling over the edge. It's not fair and she's not going to pretend that she's as lucky as Artie who has full use of his arms and hands and who knows what else. She's here, alive, but completely incapable and angry. "I'm a vegetable. I'm going to be stuck in this bed for the rest of my life and—"

"Quinn, stop it. People get in accidents and die all the time. You're so lucky to be alive. You should have died on impact in the car—"

"I should have? So you're saying you wish I died in the wreck. Is that what you're saying, Santana?" She sits up as straight as she can, her eyes narrow and her mouth pulled tight into a well-practiced sneer. She knows her could expression makes even the most self-assured shudder with insecurity and it has never failed to put Santana in her place. Until now. Santana looks down at her, her gaze soft and, god, is that pity? The fact that she's wearing her Cheerios uniform only makes it worse.

"Shit, of course it isn't. How could you even—Jesus, Quinn. You know I care about you. Why would I wish you were dead? I'm just saying that it's, you know, like a miracle or something that you're talking to us right now and that you shouldn't take that for granted." Quinn rolls her eyes. It hurts too much to cock her eyebrow.

Brittany is stroking her shoulder, and it's bizarre to watch the action and feel nothing. "Quinn, we'd rather have you with no arms and legs or without a face or even bald than dead. I'm just happy you're alive, but I get why you're pissed. I mean, Artie got like that sometimes, too. It's not fair, but it…it could be worse." No. It couldn't, and no, she doesn't understand. Just because she spent almost a year fucking some guy in a wheelchair doesn't mean she understands how helpless and hopeless Quinn feels. It would be heartbreaking to watch the two girls who she's known for so long grasp at straws for what to say and how to act. They look to each other, back to Quinn, and Quinn knows they're having a private, silent conversation as they plan their next move. Brittany presses a kiss to her cheek. "I brought you a present."

She pulls out a stuffed bear she made at the mall with a homemade cast on its leg and Hello Kitty bandages on its face.

"Press its chest, Q! We put a special message inside," and thank God that Santana is the one who rolls her eyes, but gently and quietly reminds Britt so Quinn doesn't have to.

"Oh, right. I'm sorry…do you want me to do it?"

She tries to smile, but the knot of anger in her stomach tightens. She can't yell at Brittany, as much as she might want to. "Sure, B. Thanks."

"Santana and Brittany love you beary much and are so glad you didn't get totally squished by that truck!" Brittany's voice says through the bear, and then Santana's interrupts, "Brittany oh my God now we have to start over-"

And for some reason it makes her feel a little bit better. "Thank you, Brittany." Her smile is almost sincere.

"Did Berry already come? She's been counting down until the day she could weasel her way into your room and make sure that her wedding to that sack of meat didn't kill you."

"She did, actually," she says. The corners of her mouth turn up and the slight change in expression doesn't go unnoticed.

"Oh god, don't tell me that the one thing you still have after that accident is your throbbing lady boner for that Streisand drag queen knock off who obviously has even worst taste in potential mates than even you."

"Gross," Brittany nods. "Throbbing. That's gross."

"I thought that crash would have knocked some sense into you—"

"She was here yesterday. She was the first one," she says pointedly.

"Well, duh. She should be. It's her fault this all happened to you. We all saw her texting you and begging you to get to the wedding faster. If she could have just calmed down and acted like a normal person you would still—"

"Don't. Don't you dare continue that sentence." Quinn watches as her icy tone makes Santana straightens, but she continues anyway. "What? I'm just telling the truth. If it weren't for Dwarfette you'd be at the top of the pyramid right now and you know it—"

"At least she was here! She was here as soon as she could be, which is a lot more than I can say for you."

"Oh please, like Berry cared about anything more than making sure that she didn't permanently dismember you with her stupid wedding so you could still help her win Nationals by swaying in the back."

"You're a coward," she spits.

"Better a coward than a psychotic bitch with some delusional crush on something barely human. You think she's going to save you from this, Quinn? Newsflash! She's out as soon as she stops feeling guilty that ruined the tiny chance at a mediocre future you might have had." She storms out of the room, swinging the heavy door and letting it close with a dull thud.

To her credit, Brittany doesn't follow on Santana's heels. Instead she pulls up a chair next to Quinn's bed and clutches that stupid bear. "I know she can be really mean, Q, but she doesn't mean the things she's saying. She really cares even if what she said makes it sound like she doesn't. She was just really scared to see you. She didn't know if she'd be able to handle it. She was really afraid she'd cry or something when she saw you. You know how she is. She's like an oyster…she's all hard on the outside and it's hard to get her to open. She's just scared if she gets opened she'll never be able to close again and she'll be valuable."

"Vulnerable?"

"Yeah, that's it. She'll come around and she'll apologize. She wanted to be here on day one. We drove here…but then she got scared and turned around and went home."

"Like that's a surprise."

"She loves you, Q. And she wouldn't want me to tell you this, but she's been really nice to Rachel the last couple weeks. I think she knows how she feels. We're all scared for you."

Quinn's smile is watery and damn it, she refuses to cry now but Brittany is smiling so sweetly and her eyes are so kind and it's so hard to blink back the tears she refuses to shed. "Thanks, B."

"Do you want me to stay longer? I can stay, but I think San's going to have to come back another day. My guess is that she's in the car crying."

"I should probably sleep or something. They'll probably come in to change my bandages soon anyway."

Brittany pecks her cheek. "I'm so sorry about San's freak out" she says. "And I'm so sorry about all of this happening to you. You really, really don't deserve it…but if anyone can make it through, it's you."

She flashes Brittany a wordless shadow of a smile, more for Brittany than for herself, and thanks her for her visit. Maybe Brittany's right and she doesn't 'deserve' to be paralyzed or in the hospital. Maybe after the last three years she deserves worse.

She starts physical therapy later two weeks later. It's the worst part of her recovery so far. It's in that softly lit room that she's given her chair. Her arms and legs are slack as the nurse lifts her from the bed. It's humiliating to be so helpless as they adjust her useless limbs in the chair. She has to be belted in until she's able to hold herself upright again. There's a strap across her lap and one across her chest. Her neck brace keep her head lifted.

No one warned her that physical therapy would hurt. After an hour of pushing, pulling, stretching and curling, she's placed back in her chair for twenty minutes of chair training. They put her hand on the control and demonstrate how she can move her shoulder just slightly to move forward.

But her shoulder won't listen to her brain. She imagines shrugging like they say. They recommend imagining her shoulder as a ball and socket joint so she tries that more detached image. She grunts in frustration, trying to force her unwilling body to comply with one simple request to move just half an inch.

She looks down at her legs, positioned neatly together as if she's just sitting normally. Her thighs look the same, her legs hang just as they had weeks before, and her feet still have traces of gold polish worn for the competition. She should be able to stand. She should be able to barely consider the process that passes between brain, nerve, and muscle and take control.

But she doesn't have an ounce of control over even one joint.

The nurses are endlessly encouraging as she grits her teeth and endlessly tries to propel herself forward. After fifteen minutes, maybe it's a slight breeze in the room or a stroke of luck, or a miracle, but her shoulder rolls forward just a fingertip's length and she's moving forward.

"Now move your hand back to stop. Okay? Okay, that's far enough. Okay! Stop!"

She crashes into a stack of mats that topple around her and swallows back frustrated tears.

Rachel is waiting outside of her room when she's wheeled back from PT. She's holding a bunch of balloons and a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"May I come in?" She directs her question to Quinn, but the burse nurse pushing her chair answers, telling her to wait a few minutes so that she can get Quinn situated. Quinn considers piping up from her seat that she might be paralyzed but her ears work perfectly and could have answered the question herself, but standing up for herself is too much effort.

She is glad that Rachel doesn't see her being lifted and tucked into her bed like a child and doesn't enter until she's settled mostly upright with her head leaning against her pillows.

"It's a Boy?" Rachel's balloons twist aimlessly around each other, tangling into a baby blue and white bunch.

"It was all they had left in the shop downstairs and I didn't want to arrive empty-handed."

"Thanks, I guess," she sighs. The balloons remind her of the last time she was hooked up to an IV, staring at these off white walls and unable to feel in a completely different way.

"I just came by to see if you have started to feel any better or if there's anything you need. I've brought the music we're working on for Nationals in case you wanted to get a head start on learning the harmonies before you come back." She pulls out a white binder with "Music For Quinn" carefully inked on the front with the songlist scribbled under it.

Santana's voice is shouting inside, Oh please, like Berry cared about anything more than making sure that she didn't permanently dismember you with her stupid wedding so you could still help her win Nationals by swaying in the back.

Quinn says nothing, but her expression must convey something negative because Rachel is tucking the binder back in her bag. "Do you want me to go? I can leave if you want."

"No," Quinn declares. "Stay." Rachel takes the seat next to the bed and picks up Quinn's hand.

"Your nails look nice." Each nail is painted a different bright color.

"Brittany did them yesterday."

"Have a lot of people come by to see you? I'm sure you have visitors filing in and out of here all the time. I'm probably lucky that no one else is here when I come."

Quinn tries to shrug, then remembers all over again. "I guess." She doesn't have to guess—there are bouquets strewn about the room. She isn't without visitors. "People come by all the time, but there are only a few I ever really want to see."

"Oh." Rachel's eyes travel down, and Quinn could swear she's blushing.

For a few minutes they don't say anything to each other and barely meet each other's eyes. Rachel's hand takes Quinn's and she laces their fingers together. She's lightly stroking the skin with the pad of her thumb and Quinn aches with want-wanting to feel that delicate touch, wanting to squeeze Rachel's hand in hers. Saying nothing, Rachel lifts their joined hands slowly to her lips, pressing hers to the rise of Quinn's scabbed and stitched knuckles. Quinn holds her breath as Rachel continues to toy with her hand. She's pressing tender, gentle kisses to each of Quinn's fingers.

Quinn stares in disbelief that Rachel's lips are touching her skin and that the God she's prayed to for eighteen years is cruel enough to tease her with such a moment without allowing her to feel it.

"I'm sorry, I just—"

"No. Don't be sorry. Please don't be sorry."

"I shouldn't have even planned that wedding-"

"Stop, Rachel. It's what you wanted. We all saw how much you wanted it. It wasn't your wedding that did this to me." She doesn't really believe that, but it's exactly what the psychologist assigned to her case has told her and she thinks that Rachel, with her tears clinging to her eyelashes, might benefit from the sentiment.

"That isn't what I mean," she murmurs. "You know that isn't what I mean."

The door swings open and Rachel jumps. Quinn thinks that the nurse who has just walked in is lucky she's paralyzed and stuck in this bed.

"Visiting hours are over, miss. I have to ask you to leave." Rachel nods mutely and starts to collect her things.

"I'll come back soon, Quinn. Tomorrow." She's steered out of the room by the nurse and Quinn rests her head against her pillows feelings equal parts awed and angry. This isn't fair. It's so much more than she expected, but still not nearly enough. She's being teased and punished by something greater than herself and it hurts more than any pain her accident has caused. Rachel Berry sat in the chair next to her bed moments from confessing her feelings for Quinn while showering her hand with kisses and something, whether it's God or fate or chance, forbids her.

If the realization of her fantasies and dreams can't inspire hope or happiness, then what's the point of living to experience anything else?

Rachel is by her bedside every day for the next week, but she never continues their interrupted conversation. Quinn doesn't mention it, either. She doesn't want to force the subject.

She's going home this week. She and her mother have sat through a seemingly endless number of sessions with doctors and nurses instructing them on the proper ways to replicate the bleakness of life in the hospital from the comfort of her very own home.

She has agreed to let Rachel help her get settled and Judy doesn't object. The three travel home from the hospital in Judy's car with Quinn's wheelchair folded in the back as they hurtle towards the Fabray home.

She'll go back to school next week and the fear of being wheeled down the hallways has her wishing for the solitude of the hospital. It's going to be like being pregnant all over again. The stares, the whispers, the rumors will all wrap their way around her and she'll again be reduced to nothing but a cautionary tale. When bad things happen to bad people part two. The irony is like a fairy tale moral. She has spent her teen years as callous and unfeeling. Now look at her.

She lies in bed and considers the benefits of never leaving her bed as Rachel hooks up a dvd player to the TV that has been moved to her bedroom.

"How's Dave?" Quinn asks suddenly. Rachel looks startled.

"He's…much better. He's come to visit the Glee Club a few times. Kurt wants him to feel like he has a place to be himself and has made him sort of an honorary member of Glee. Why?"

"I guess I've just been thinking about him lately."

Rachel doesn't manage to hide the flicker of fear that crosses her face. "What about?"

Quinn chooses her words carefully. "He's the only person I've ever known who came so close to death, but is still alive—"

"And you are both lucky for that," Rachel reminds her, echoing her therapist. That same idea of being fortunate to be stuck in this body that no longer works settles heavily in her chest.

"I guess I just want to talk to him about what it feels like to be forced to live."

Rachel drops the cables in her hand and can't quite conceal her gasp. "Quinn, don't say that."

"Why not? It's true. You've said so yourself—it's a miracle I'm alive. I shouldn't be. I should have died in that car, or on the operation table, or in that coma."

"Quinn, stop it," she pleads. Her hand is cupping Quinn's cheek and the warmth of her fingers speeds Quinn's heartbeat, but she can't stop.

"I've done so many bad things, Rachel. I've hurt so many people. I made your life hell. I got pregnant and abandoned my child. I have stabbed almost everyone who has ever cared about me in the back and now I'm paying for it. All I'm saying is that God should have finished the job he started and taken my life for me so I don't have to. But I can't go on like this. I'm half alive, Rachel, living in a body that isn't mine and completely cut off from everything that has ever mattered to me."

"You know that isn't true! Look at Artie! He's paralyzed and—"

"This isn't about Artie," she says calmly.

"Quinn, you're really scaring me."

"I'm telling you think because I really trust you, Rachel. I don't want to be alive. I don't want to live a life that's so empty. I've been thinking about this for weeks and—"

"You can't!" Rachel exclaims. "You can't even talk like this. When we got that call I never thought I'd see you again and that I had killed you." Tears streak her cheeks and she's furiously running her fingers through Quinn's hair. "You living through the accident is a miracle for you, yes, but it's a miracle for me, too."

"How does it somehow benefit you that I'm going to be stuck in a chair suffering through a life without feeling?"

Rachel says nothing, but takes her face in her hands and lowers Quinn's lips to hers. The softness and sweetness of the kiss takes her breath away. "Can you really tell me you didn't feel that?"

She can't.

"When I thought we lost you, Quinn I just…I didn't…how could I live knowing that my selfishness may have killed someone I love?"

"You don't have to kiss me because you feel guilty, Rachel. And don't try to guilt me into living either."

"Aren't you listening to me at all, Quinn? I'm trying to tell you that I love you." She's sobbing loudly and it breaks Quinn's heart to watch the tears fall from Rachel's blotchy cheeks as he nose runs. "I'm trying to tell you that I love you and that I'm not going to let you live or die thinking that there's nothing left in this world for you to feel when I'm trying to make up for the time I wasted without you!"

And no, she can't feel Rachel's hands clinging desperately to hers, but she can feel the tremor in her voice and the force of her words and the tears pricking the corners of her own eyes. She can feel Rachel's lips on hers for the next hour. She can feel a small bud of hope unfurling in her chest and maybe the darkness is beginning to lift.