A/N: Merry Christmas and happy New Year! (a little late, but better late than never :P)
You're all awesome and I hope you have a wonderful year.

Maybe a trigger warning for this chapter? Not sure. Anyways be wary, just in case.

Chapter XXV

Quinn's POV

Storms were gathering outside.

The sky beyond my window was ominous, with dark low-lying clouds that looked close enough to reach if one could only jump high enough. The trees were swaying in the sharp wind, orange and red leaves spiraling erratically to the ground as thunder rumbled the earth.

I jumped, startled, and drew my eyes away from the window when I heard a throat being cleared from the doorway. My mother stood there, her white-blond hair drew up into a tight bun, and jerked her chin toward the kitchen behind her, gesturing for me to come before turning and leaving without a word. This is my life, I thought with a sigh as I moved to my feet, and followed after my mother.

I passed by the mirror hanging on the wall in the hallway, and stopped to peer intently at my reflection. My eyes were tinted with red at the corners thanks to the make-up removing wipe I had used earlier this morning. I blinked rapidly, just to see if the red would fade at all. It didn't. Resigned, I observed my hair instead. I hadn't straightened it this morning, which meant I would probably be forced to listen to my mother's complaints. If I didn't look my best, generally she was irritated.

I entered the kitchen and found the stack of dirty dishes already waiting for me in the sink. Acquiescently, I nodded to my mother, who sat at the table before a mound of papers, and I started on the dishes.

My father was out at work, even though it was a Saturday. He always worked Saturdays now. The only days he didn't work were Wednesdays and Sundays, because of church. Whenever he wasn't there or at church, he was at home, with a bottle of beer in his hand and an almost empty tray cigars on the arm of the chair he sat in that was positioned before the sixty-inch television that was always turned on. Sometimes my mother would speak to him, and when she did it was to argue with him. But normally our house was silent except for the constant sound of the television shows my father watched, or the steady hum of the laundry being dried, or the clanking sound of dishes as they were being washed, or the scrubbing noise produced by my mother's relentless cleaning.

Our house was always clean. It was spotless to a fault. I don't think a single dust bunny existed in the entire house, and that included in the attic, where no one ever went except for my mother to clean. Nothing was up there except for an old boxed Christmas tree and a few broken lights, but every morning before work she still went up there to dust and disinfect and mop and clean until the sun reflected upon the attic windows was bright enough to blind anyone that looked up into it. The cars that sat out in the driveway were also pristine; my mother cleaned them every other day after work. Every now and then my father would complain, for no particular reason, that he didn't want his car cleaned. But then he would pass out from another drink, and my mom would finish cleaning the car, and when my father would wake up he wouldn't remember being upset over anything other than the thing that happened that ruined his life a little over three weeks ago; the death of my sister.

I glanced at the shut white door of my sister's room as I scrubbed dishes in the sink. You would think that it was a room no one ever entered, but in actuality it was constantly occupied. Every now and then I would enter the room and crawl into Frannie's bed. The coldness of the smooth sheets that were never slept in anymore disturbed me, but I found solace when I curled up, resting my head on her pillow, and I swear I could still smell her, although I suspected I only imagined the scent, considering how often my mother cleaned. It didn't matter, though, because even imagining her perfume was nearly as believable as if it were right there. My father would occasionally stumble into it and just stand, swaying in his unbalance, in the center of the room, staring at the walls adorned with first place ribbons and various pictures with his mouth hanging open and his eyes fuzzy and unfocused. My mother would enter it every morning promptly at seven with the bed sheets she washed the night before, and she would make the bed and plump the pillows and stare at the neat, vacant bed for a few minutes with a blank look in her eyes, as though she were dead inside. I knew she was. We were all dead inside.

After putting away the dishes, I took a bottle of water out of the fridge. It wasn't very cold since I only put them in half an hour ago, but it soothed the lump in my throat that had formed upon looking at Fran's door. You would think that after nearly a month to cope, we would have accepted it by now. But if anything, our denial seemed to be even worse now. Well, sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. Most of the time, we all found our ways to keep ourselves numb from the pain. My father drank. My mother worked until she was so exhausted from being so busy that all she thought about was sleep. I wasn't as fortunate as my parents. Since I had less readily available distractions for me, my only outlet was my dreaming.

I was definitely the epitome of a daydreamer. Day by day I would sit in class, perch my chin on my fist and stare out the window at huge cumulous clouds drifting along in the sky. I often imagined what life would be like if Fran were still here. She would have been graduating soon. Our parents would be so proud, every time they spoke to anyone, they would always find some way to bring up their perfect daughter and how well she was doing. Once, a friend asked me if I was jealous that Fran seemed to get more attention from our parents than I did. But I wasn't, really. Frannie honestly was perfect, and had been the perfect sister, and I would miss her everyday for the rest of my life.

That was precisely why it was so hard to heal. It was like a scar that would get ripped open every time it started to close. How could I move on with my life when it felt just like yesterday that Frannie had been giving me a ride to school, with the windows down and our hair whipping about hectically as music blasted from the speakers? Every time I entered the school I could still feel Frannie walking in beside me, her backpack slung over one shoulder and her Cheerios bag swinging from its position around her shoulder. Whenever I arrived home after school, and entered the empty house before my parents had arrived home from work, I stood in the doorway and the silence and remembered how it was when Frannie would come home after a game and I'd watch her walk through the doorway popping skittles into her mouth, and I'd tell her how counterproductive it was to go exercise and then eat candy, and she would laugh and tell me she only had one life and she intended to eat what she wanted in it. Often my best friend Santana would be there, and Frannie would toss some candy to her and they'd share it while I laughed and shook my head at them until Santana finally forced me to succumb and grab a handful of skittles myself. "Taste the rainbow, bitch," she would say, while Frannie grinned at me.

How was I expected to heal? Not only had I lost Frannie, but I had lost Santana, too. She hadn't spoken to me in months. My best friend since I moved to Lima in the second grade. She had been more than my best friend, actually. She had been…more.

If I had her to help me with all this, to help me deal with this gaping hole that was in my heart, maybe everything wouldn't be this hard. Maybe life wouldn't be this…dark place.

I felt the tears sting my eyes, and I let them fall, staring blankly at the wall as I took another drink of water. I screwed the cap back on the bottle and set it on the counter, and then grabbed my jacket that lay draped over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. I felt as though I were stuck in a slow-motion movie as I walked into the living room. I could hear the faint sound of footsteps on wood; my mother was upstairs, cleaning the attic. My father was snoring in the chair. The television cast a rapidly flickering light on him, and the protruding roundness of his growing belly made a stark shadow. The half-drank bottle of liquor had fallen from his limp hand, and lay in a small puddle in the carpet. A month ago, I would have cleaned it immediately, thinking it was something nice to help my mother. Now I knew it was something she would enjoy; yet another thing to clean and keep her mind off her own dark place.

I opened the front door and slipped outside. Rain was gently falling, a quiet pitter-patter on the pavement of an otherwise silent suburbia. Pulling my hood up over my head, I headed down the street. I needed a walk. I needed to just get away from that house for a minute. I needed my damn best friend. I needed my damn sister. But Frannie was gone, and Santana hated me.

My shoes, gray and silver Toms, slapped against the cement of the sidewalk as I ambled down the road. A kind of gloomy ache had seized hold of my insides. It felt as though my heart were sinking, being pushed down my body. I could see Fran's bright grin in my mind. I could remember my mother's sweet smile, and my father's robust laugh. The grip on my heart seemed to tighten. It had begun to rain harder, and with it, my spirits sank even lower. I missed Frannie so much. Even beyond that, I just missed something. I didn't know what. It was just that longing you get when you miss something, when you yearn. I felt that, constantly, and I didn't know why. What was there to miss? Despite my sister's untimely demise, my life had not changed too much over the past month. Yes, things were different now, with my father on the road to alcoholism and my mother in need of some type of severe psychological treatment, but that was because of Fran dying. Because of Fran and her death. My sister died.

Maybe it was this guilt I felt. I should be only missing Frannie, right? Frannie was dead, and I should be aching for her to be back. But she wasn't the only person I missed and wanted back. Was it right, that I ached for Santana just the same? That I wanted Santana to come back to me with an equal amount of longing? My sister had died. I should only be thinking about her. Not wishing my old friend were here to hold me, to kiss me…

My head hurt too much to even think. I took a deep breath, coughing a little when I inhaled some rain. I shook my head and droplets scattered off my face. My ponytail was drenched and therefore heavy and thick, so when it slapped me in the face, I shoved it away, resisting the urge to growl. Even my hair was turning against me. I felt like the whole world was against me. How did people do this? How did people deal with life? Death. Hopelessness. It was overwhelming.

Cars were passing me in the road, driving slowly in the threat of the rain. I was able to discern them only because of the glare of their headlights through the thicket of falling water. I didn't even pause to wonder if my parents noticed I was out of the house. I knew they didn't, and I knew they wouldn't.

I entered a bridge-way, and could hear the rain pelleting the water down in the river. Fran and I had once stood on this bridge twice before, when we went on a random fishing trip when I was in the seventh grade, and when she was a sophomore in high school and had just gotten her driving license. Both times we hadn't caught anything and after growing bored, had opted to go out for ice cream instead.

Exhaling, I slid down to sit against the short wall of the bridge, and I sat there for a good twenty minutes, feeling the rain beating down on my body and hearing it beat down on the river behind me. I had always wanted to swim in the river, as many of the kids in my grade did every summer, but I had never gotten around to it when Frannie was alive. Santana, Frannie and I used to speak about it, but we always ended up going to the lake instead. Once Fran died, well, there was no point. Over the past month, my friends began to withdraw. At first they tried to bring me closer, full of consoling words and soothing assurances. I went to Glee club four times, and each time was met with a song that was meant to be uplifting and inspiring but instead was horribly depressing. When they saw that wasn't helping and I stopped going to meetings, they faded away, one by one. I didn't mind. I hadn't been particularly close to them, anyway. The only reason I had joined that club in the first place was to spy for Coach Sylvester and to spy on Rachel Berry because she'd had her eye on Finn Hudson, and then I'd only stayed later because Santana enjoyed the club, plus I didn't like the way she always draped her legs over Brittany's. But that didn't matter anymore either, because Santana had not even so much as looked at me in months.

Pain hammered in my heart. I closed my eyes and used my jacket sleeve to brush away the fresh tears that rolled down over my cheeks. I hated life, I thought vehemently, and then swallowed hard and realized that I didn't even hate life, I just felt nothing for it. The opposite of love was indifference, and I was completely indifferent about life. I had absolutely no desire to live. So why was I? My thoughts drifted back to the sound of the rain on the water.

I stepped up onto the wall of the bridge and curiously peered down, holding on to one of the beams for support, but I couldn't see the river. I leaned a little more, squinting.

The honk of a car came out of nowhere. My heart jumped into my throat and I jerked. My left sneaker slipped on the wet cement. My heart dropped into my stomach as I fell. That sick feeling of weightlessness came over me—for one splitting second, as I fell through the air, my eyes widened. I looked at my hair, wavy tendrils wriggling in the air. I looked at my arms, extended as though I was reaching into the dark night sky in a longing embrace. I saw my Toms, swaying in the sudden wind of my free fall. For one moment, one instance of surrealism, I felt utter elation. And then that was over, and I felt true fear.

As I plunged into the surface of the river, lights burst in my eyes, pain shot through my body. I was suddenly spiriting down through the water, brought to an abrupt halt when my head hit something hard and solid. Agony speared through me, from where my head had made contact right down to my toes. I took a deep gasping breath instinctually and water flooded into my lungs. My body gave a wild buck in disagreement. I flailed, struggled. My limbs felt tangled together. My clothes were dragging me down. I could hear a pounding in my ears, my mind screaming at me from inside my head. Which way was the surface? Where was I facing? Down, up? When could I die already?

Fran would be so disappointed in me. Santana would be so pissed, and this would truly solidify her hate for me. This would break both of their hearts.

I sobbed in the water. Inexplicably I was reminded of words Frannie had said before in regards to the Cheerios team. She had said how she hated it when some of the girls fell and began crying so immediately. "How could a person get hurt and just cry, like an immediate response?" she had asked, laughing. "You cry when you're overwhelmed. How do they get overwhelmed so easy, by something so lame?" Now I understood. Now I felt like a hypocrite—but then I didn't. They hurt their ankle, after all, or pulled a muscle. I was dying. Here, sinking, slowly sinking, surely I was dying. Surely...

Then hands were gripping me, pulling me out of the water. I felt bile leave me along with the river water I projected out of my mouth. I struggled at first, and then, all at once, my body went limp. The hands on me felt vividly hot, a stark contrast to my ice-cold skin. I felt pressure on my lips, and more warmth as water trickled out of the corners of my mouth, before my body jerked up and I heaved out all the river water I had inhaled. My head suddenly felt as though it split open, and my eyes rolled back.

I was put on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance. I wondered why people weren't even touching me—or were they? Was my body really so numb, that I was unfeeling of any touch?

It was too chaotic to feel terror as I was taken to a hospital. I felt dazed. I didn't feel pain as much now. It was fading. At least I could see. When I opened my eyes, I could see shapes. In one part of my eyes, I could see flashes of color. White, red, blue. Black shadows were creeping toward the center of my vision. I think I was about to faint. I think I did faint. Suddenly I was being wheeled somewhere else, doors bursting open as I flew down a hallway, people shouting instructions all around me, ordering others. Why? Wasn't I dead yet?

Maybe I passed out again. When I could hear sounds, things seemed calmer. I heard voices, but they weren't as frantic. The black was slithering around my mind again, and I only heard snatches of conversations as I drifted in and out of consciousness.

The darkness was returning. I wished I could open my eyes. My lashes fluttered, and the movement of my eyelids felt incredibly strenuous. Exhaustion was taking over my body. The bed I lay on no longer felt like a board; it felt soft, warm, welcoming. I sank into it, closing mental eyes, relaxing...

Sounds faded as oblivion took its place. It took over everything, clouding my mind like a sudden and instantaneous blanket of nothing. I welcomed it.

When I woke, the first thing I noticed was the sound of familiar high-pitched, annoying laughter. Confused, I shifted my eyes around the room for a moment before realizing there was a television on the wall across the room, and SpongeBob Squarepants was playing quietly. Fighting through the haze of disorientation, I dimly wondered why. Not only did I dislike the show, but it had also been Frannie's personal favorite since she was a child, and it caused a pain in my heart. I shifted my eyes away to instead observe the rest of the room. It was empty, quiet and clean. I saw on the clock that it was two in the afternoon.

With my head throbbing, I frantically tried to get my brain up to speed on what was had happened. When I had left the house last night, it had been ten o'clock at night. I had been upset, had went to the bridge. Had stood on the bridge. Had fallen off the bridge…

I struggled to remember after that point. I could only remember vague snatches.

"Quinn Fabray?"

I jumped again and turned quickly to look at who said my name, regretting it immediately when my head throbbed. The image of the doctor walking toward me shimmered as my vision spun.

"Quinn," the doctor said in a soft voice. I felt his hand on my shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," I said numbly.

"Do you remember what happened last night?"

I nodded and regretted it once more as my head spun.

"What do you remember?"

"I went for a walk, and I…" I coughed, clearing my throat, and my aching head pounded. "I fell off the bridge."

"You fell?" the doctor repeated. When I didn't respond, he continued, "Well, we're going to keep you here for another few hours just to be safe, and then we'll check on you again, and if everything's okay you'll be free to leave tonight. Alright?"

"Yes."

A woman appeared at the doctor's side. "My name is Sandra and I'm your nurse." She leaned forward, touching my arm. I looked up into her dark eyes. She was short, with russet hair and a kind smile. "We called your parents and they were here this morning. They left for work, and they said they'd be back to pick you up tonight. If you need anything, you ring that button, okay? I'll be in to check on you every twenty minutes."

"Okay," I said.

"Get some rest," the doctor said, and shot me a sympathetic look before he and the nurse turned to leave.

"Okay," I said again.

Then I was alone in the room. I took a deep breath and rested my head back into the pillow. I wondered what my parents' reactions were. I wondered whether or not they would be upset, or if they had grown too anesthetized to even feel upset any longer. I felt comfortably anesthetized right now, and realized the doctor had probably given me something for the pain.

As a sleepy haze began to settle upon my head, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw a silhouette climb from the floor, growing taller until it was towering over me. Then it bent at the waist, and something that felt like soft feathers caressed my face, and warmth perfection sank into my lips. My eyes fluttered open to see Santana's face right there, her eyes closed, her lashes casting long, dark crisscrossing shadows over her cheeks as her head tilted, her lips moving slowly with mine. I wondered if this was real, or just a dream. I think it was a dream, because next I saw black-feathered wings burst forth from Santana's back and curve around, arching to enfold me within them. I lifted my arms and locked them around her neck, parting my lips and inhaling her sweet scent. I drew back for a moment to look at her again, and she smiled sadly at me, stroking my cheeks with cool fingertips. A sleepy darkness crawled into my vision as my eyes drifted shut. I leaned toward her, my lips tingling, anticipating the weight of her own landing on them, and then I felt my pillow press against the side of my head as I fell into unconsciousness.

I tucked my tongue between my teeth, holding Catching Fire up with my left hand while I used my right to rotate the straw in my tea, stirring the sugar within it. I had been thirty thousand feet in the air for the past seven hours, with about eleven more to go. Santana was curled up in the window seat beside me, and had been sleeping for the entire flight so far. I couldn't blame her. She hadn't exactly been able to sleep much last night.

I, meanwhile, had already watched two movies before deciding to read. I'd already finished Catching Fire a couple hours ago, so I decided to just reread my favorite parts instead. I took care to avoid any scenes with Rue mentioned in them. I could never handle any mention of her, and I wasn't sure why. She just broke my heart. I think it was because she was so innocent and pure, and she died. Maybe she reminded me of my own sister, because Frannie had been too innocent and too pure to die, too.

Of course, the irony of the situation was that Frannie hadn't actually been as innocent and pure as she'd led people on to believe. Only I knew that. Only I knew about the man she'd been seeing for the past year before her death, and what she had done for him. It still made me queasy to think about, not because of what she did, but because of why she did it. It was something I would probably take to my grave. Only Santana knew part of the story, but that was it.

I absently wondered what my parents' reactions would have been if they had known. Would they have kicked her out? Would they have disowned, shunned and banned their precious Golden Child? It was only one mistake. Frannie had honestly not made many others. In fact, the only other mistake she made was what got her killed. It was ironic that Fran had never gotten drunk in her life before she got behind the wheel. It was ironic that it was the first time she wasn't surrounded by her friends, because they had still been inside the house playing drinking games when she decided it was time to go home. It was ironic that she'd never crashed her car once before, when that night she wrapped it around a tree. A lot of things were ironic about Fran's death. I didn't like to think about them, but sometimes the memories just seemed to float into the forefront of my mind. Fran dying. Seeing that man at her funeral, offering condolences to my parents. Struggling to resume normal life over the next month. Missing Fran, missing Santana. Feeling like I had no reason to live. Falling off that bridge. My parents' numbness. Making the decision to visit Puck, which would ultimately be the best decision of my life, even though at the time, it had probably been the worst.

All of those pinnacle moments that changed my life forever. And they had all led up to now.

My lips curved upward ruefully at the thought. It was crazy to think that out of losing my sister, losing my best friend, losing my parents and losing my entire life in general, I gained a new one; a new best friend, a new family. Beth.

I couldn't wait for Santana to meet her. The idea alone made my stomach flip with both excitement and trepidation. What if they didn't like each other? Beth didn't do very well with strangers. But surely they would. Santana would be good to her, I already knew that much, just because Santana was my best friend and of course she would treat the most important person in my life with respect. And although Santana could be a little rough around the edges, I knew Beth would grow to adore her. Santana was so different and so wonderful in so many different ways, I had no doubts she would provide plenty of entertainment to Beth. But…what if that wasn't the case? My fear overcame my common sense, and my brow furrowed as I imagined Santana treating Beth coldly, or Beth throwing tantrums every time Santana was around.

"Hey," came a raspy voice from beside me, one that immediately sent heat pulsating through my body. I lowered the book I hadn't been reading to catch Santana sleepily watching me. "What are you frowning about?" She kept her voice low, and I followed suit.

I forced a smile, closing the book and tucking it into my carry-along bag. "You've just had nearly an eight hour nap. You know that, right?"

"I think I deserved it." She smirked at me as she sat up and stretched. I couldn't resist echoing the smirk because, as I thought earlier, she really did deserve it. I deserved a nap too, to be honest, but for some reason I wasn't sleepy. Tired, but not sleepy. I think it was nerves, about Santana meeting Beth. Or just about Santana in general. "And you didn't answer my question," she added.

"What question?" I said evasively, averting my gaze.

"What were you frowning about?"

My fringe blew up as I puffed a breath out. "I don't know. I suppose I'm just nervous."

She discreetly looped her arm down beneath mine, sneaking a squeeze of my hand. The secrecy was unnecessary, to be honest; most everyone around us was asleep in their seats. The only people awake were Rachel, who was reading some Barbara Streisand autobiography, Joe, who was randomly playing with a Rubik cube, and Tina and Mercedes, who were each listening to their own iPods. To prove that point, I flipped my hand up to meet her palm with mine and intertwine our fingers. She beamed in response, and I smiled in reaction to glimpsing her adorable dimples.

"What are you nervous about?" she whispered.

I shrugged, unable to answer because I didn't quite know what to say. She seemed to understand, which was unsurprising. If anyone had ever been able to read my mind, it was Santana.

"We're okay," she said softly. She gently squeezed my hand as reassurance. "We're friends again, right?"

My lips curved upward. "Right."

She tilted her head, getting that look in her eyes, and I felt my breath quicken. "Of course, there is a bathroom right back there…"

I shook my head, and we both struggled to suppress our laughter. An hour into the flight, Tina had gone into the bathroom. A couple minutes later, we spotted Puck following behind her. He came out five minutes later, and then a minute after that so did Tina, with her hair unkempt and her shirt on backwards. Puck readjusted his crotch in his jeans before he sat down in his seat, with a smug look on his face. It definitely turned off the idea of airplane sex for us.

Besides, to be perfectly frank, I was sore, and exhausted, and I didn't think I was capable of having any sex again for at least the next couple of days. Which I would guess is what would be happening, considering once we land back in Ohio, we would remain strictly platonic best friends.

"We'll have to raincheck," said Santana teasingly. I felt heat prickle throughout my body when she brushed her thumb across the back of my knuckles. Her eyes remained intent on mine, and I struggled to regulate my breathing under her dark gaze.

"So…um…I'm excited," I stammered, desperate to say anything to change the subject and distract myself from the way she was looking at me as though she wanted nothing more than to rip my clothes off me from where I sat, and the way I sat here wishing she would rip them off me.

Her brow creased in puzzlement, and she leaned back a little to blink at me. "For what?"

I was almost too embarrassed to say anything for a moment. But the anxiety was eating away at me, so I blurted, "For you to meet Beth."

Santana's face split into a smile. "Well, yeah, me too. I can't wait to meet her. I'm coming to your house tomorrow night, right? We're still on for dinner?"

I nodded, returning the smile, pleased with her reaction. "Of course. Nana's excited to see you again, she's freaking out. She says she's making tacos for you, just like the old days."

"And just like the old days, I'll pretend that's not racist at all." We both laughed, lowering it down to hiss under our breath when Rachel glanced at us. She only smiled, which was nice. It was weird to be on such good terms with her. It seems that opening up to her had broken down a wall between us, and we were able to actually be affable toward one another, instead of being frenemies.

"How about a threesome?" said Santana, and the suggestion was so sudden and so blunt that I audibly gasped, turning to goggle at her.

"What?"

Santana collapsed with laughter in her seat, her hand shaking out of my grip as she went to hold her sides instead. "Fuck, you should have seen your face. I'm kidding. Completely fucking joking. Like I would ever—" Her voice cut off as she subsided into hilarity once more, and a reluctant smile was tugged out of me as I watched her cracking her shit up over her own joke.

Still, although the implications themselves were ridiculous, the general idea struck a nerve as I wondered what Santana would think if she ever found out about my threesome with Tris and Holly. It was over a year ago, so perhaps she wouldn't even care. Maybe she would even find it amusing….

I was kidding myself. It was Santana, after all. If there was anything she was infamous for, it was her temper and her quick jump to rage. It was one thing we had always been completely different yet somehow identical in. The amount of anger we could reach was equal and of huge magnitude. But we reached it in different ways. For me, it was a long, slow, bitter, festering smolder. It curdled and stewed until my minor irritation grew to a blown out fury. But for Santana…she could snap from annoyance to wrath in half a second. But that wasn't the reason why I didn't want her to find out about Tris and Holly. I mean, I would be an idiot to say that Santana's wrath wasn't intimidating, but it certainly wasn't personally intimidating to me. I had grown up with her, after all. I knew how she worked. No, the real reason I didn't want her to find out was because it would hurt her. And that was one thing, in all our years of knowing one another, that I had never been able to stand, particularly when I was the one who caused it.

Of course, I had not been the only one who caused hurt in our relationship. Santana had hurt me, too, plenty of times. We had hurt each other. One of the reasons I hated hurting her so much was because I had hurt her myself far too many times…

"God, that was great. That was priceless." Santana was sobering up, looking at me with a huge grin that created crinkles in the corners of her eyes. "So, I take it threesomes are out of the question?" She winked, cutting across me when I started to frown. "I know, I know, Q. No stress." She found my hand under the blanket again, smiled as she squeezed it. "No stress. Just friends."

I managed to conjure up a weak smile to give her as I rested my head back on my chair. I was so tired of stress. Not only the stress I was under now, since Frannie had died, and since Beth had been born…but the stress before that. Lying to myself, lying to Santana, lying to everyone else. I was sick of all the lying, which was so damn ironic considering I knew I would continue to do it.

I closed my eyes, settling myself in as I felt Santana's head rest on my shoulder. Lying was what had gotten me into all the messes I'd ever been in. Lying may have even been the bad karma that had gotten Frannie killed. Lying was what caused the rift between Santana and I. And lying was what caused me so much distress within myself.

I was honestly a horrible person. All this loathing and self-hatred was exhausting, and made me feel so pathetic. I was tired of it. There were so many mistakes I wish I'd never made…yet at the same time, I didn't regret anything, because out of all the shit, I got Beth, didn't I? She made all the idiotic, selfish, hurtful things I'd done worth it.

You make your own bed, figuratively speaking. You create your own karma. Everything that had ever happened to me, I had done something to deserve it. I suppose that was the real kicker—as much as I liked to blame Santana for things…I had treated her worse. She was a good person. I looked at her now, subtly so she wouldn't move her head. I could barely glimpse the tip of her nose, due to the angle she was resting her head. But God, even the tip of her nose was beautiful.

I didn't even understand why she would want to be friends with me, let alone anything more, because in all truthfulness, I did not deserve her.

The trip home from the hospital was both silent and exhausting. Upon speaking to my mother before leaving, she was both terse and tense, a chilling factor when it came to her. I felt guilty now, as I avoided looking at her by pointedly staring out of the window instead. My mother had problems enough without worrying about me and my clumsy idiocy.

"You're grounded." my mother said as she parked the car in the driveway. "No phone, no Internet, no going out."

"Okay," I said, expressionless. Inside, however, was another story. Anger bubbled up within me. We both knew that taking my phone was pointless, because I rarely used it. Taking away the Internet was useless, because it wasn't something altogether necessary in my day-to-day life. And forbidding me from going out was the most ridiculous; I had no friends and no life, therefore I never went out. It annoyed me that my mother really cared so little that she didn't even bother to properly punish me for nearly killing myself, nor, in fact, did she bother to even speak to me about it. Obviously, it didn't faze her. Tears briefly stung my eyes before I furiously blinked them away.

"Speak to your father," my mother said as she got out of the car. Before she closed the car door, she bent down to quickly look at me. "And then go straight to bed," she added.

She had already shut the door and entered the house by the time I unbuckled my seatbelt. When I entered the house, my dad was in the kitchen, standing before the counter as he made himself a ham and cheese sandwich. I stood on the other side of the counter and watched in silence as he used a butter knife to spread mayonnaise on the bread.

"You feeling okay, Quinnie?" he asked, his voice only slightly slurred. It was Sunday and two o'clock, so he'd only been home from church for an hour and probably only had two or three drinks so far.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said.

He was silent as he finished making his sandwich, walked over to the fridge and grabbed a can of beer. "Don't do it again," he said as he stumbled into the living room. I stood for a moment, fighting not to cry tears of frustration, particularly since my mother was only feet away, already set to work on putting away the ham, cheese and mayonnaise my father had left sitting out.

Swallowing away the lump in my throat, I stomped my way up the stairs to my room and slammed the door behind me. Standing alone, I finally let the fury out of me. Tears poured as I stormed over to the bag of dirty laundry sitting in front of my closet and drove my foot into it. Laundry spilled out everywhere, but it felt good to make such violent physical contact. I snatched the computer chair and pushed it over, kicking it away for good measure when it clattered to the ground. I kicked the closet door, felt the wood splinter beneath the toe of my shoe, and smiled grimly. Lastly, I seized the stack of clothes sitting on my dresser that I had gotten out of the dryer and folded neatly two days ago. With the last of my rage and strength, I flung them as hard as I could at my window. They rattled the blinds before falling to the floor in a big, messy heap. Then, chest heaving and sobs choking in my throat, I dropped myself down on my bed and wrapped my arms around Shades, the stuffed orca whale Santana had given me for Christmas two years ago. It was, sadly, my only friend.

As all the frustration and tears left me, I thought vaguely of how pathetic I was. Something was really wrong with me if I could cry for an hour and a half and it wasn't even real. Well, it was real, but it wasn't true anger I was crying out. I still felt numb, as though I could no longer feel anger. Sometimes I wondered if that was because all I was anymore was anger. I didn't know if that was possible, but it felt right.

Blinking my puffy eyes, I looked down at Shades, bundled tightly in my arms. Santana had decided on a whale because I used to tease her over her own stuffed whale that she used to kiss when she was a child. She bought me it because it looked just like her own. My sister had actually helped us name it, saying that the black spots around its eyes looked like sunglasses, so we decided to call it Shades. Once Frannie had put her own sunglasses on it, and I took a picture and put it on Facebook. I took a moment to wistfully wish I could look at the picture now, but it was lost along with the rest of any photos I ever took when I deleted my Facebook account.

I sighed, settling back and looking up at the ceiling. It was adorned with glow in the dark stars that Santana and I had pasted up there last summer. The glow had already faded away, but they were still nice to look at. There was a cobweb in one of the corners of the room, and I made a mental note to remember to clean it away.

Scrubbing the tear tracks off my face, I sat up and took stock of what I'd done. It really wasn't much. Spilled dirty laundry basket that I couldn't be bothered to clean back up again. Computer chair on the floor. Clean laundry strewn all over that I really couldn't be bothered to pick up and fold again. Oh well. Who cared, anyway? Who cared about anything anymore?

I stood up, walked over to the other side of the room and picked up the computer chair, setting it upright. As I fixed the crooked blinds, I couldn't resist peering out at the street. If I craned my neck just the right way, I could catch a glimpse of Santana's house.

I felt tears well up again. I was so miserable. I honestly didn't know what I was going to do. It had been a month since Frannie's death and nothing made sense. I missed Frannie. I missed Santana. I missed my parents. There was this gaping hole inside of my heart that I desperately needed to be filled, and I was lonely. My parents didn't speak to me. Santana didn't even look at me. I just needed someone, even if it was only brief contact, even if it was only physical…

The answer came to me like a flash of lightning. I seized my phone off my desk. My mother had fortunately forgotten to take it away from me, considering she told me earlier in the car that I was grounded. I scrolled through my contacts and found Noah Puckerman; my fingers padded away across the screen as I typed a message asking whether or not he was free tonight. His reply was immediate, and was one that almost made me smile in grim satisfaction.

I grabbed my keys and my purse and headed down the stairs. I knew my parents wouldn't notice my absence. My father would be passed out drunk in front of the television right now, and my mother would be in the bathroom scrubbing the toilet until it sparkled. Neither of them would notice my absence.

I swallowed away the unease that starting my car up gave me. For the first two weeks after Frannie's death, I couldn't bear driving anywhere. It was hard enough sitting passenger in a car. But eventually I had to return to school, and I had to drive myself to get there. Nerves continued to flutter in my belly as I drove down the road toward Puck's home. It was always eerily quiet in this part of town. He lived with his mother and little sister in a small house in the part of town where generally all the elderly people that lived within a fifty-mile radius were clumped together in a little cul de sac. There was none of the usual noise that you could hear in the heart of Lima, like children playing or teenagers chattering away, or even adults driving to and from work. It was just a silent, neat little suburb, with ancient Volkswagens parked in every driveway, except for the motorcycle parked in Puck's.

I pulled my car into the drive, parking behind one of the previously aforementioned ancient Volkswagens. Once I turned the ignition off, I sat still, staring through the windshield at the quaint house before me. I hadn't spoken to Puck since the day of Fran's death. He had tried to talk to me a few times at school, and had sang me a KISS song in Glee club in an attempt, like the others, to make me feel better. But I had always been too upset or too numb to bother replying to him.

My thoughts were interrupted when the door opened to reveal Puck, standing there wearing nothing but ripped jeans and a black wife-beater. He waited at the door while I climbed out of my car.

"Hey," he greeted me, and not nearly as cautiously as I had expected, considering I hadn't spoken to him in a month. "My mom and my sister are out grilling my neighbors about the consequences of eating pork. What's up?"

I snorted and shook my head as I followed him into the house. He was such an idiot, and I would honestly rather not be here with him. But he was better than nothing.

"What's up?" he repeated, turning to look at me over his shoulder and raise his brows at me.

"Nothing really," I said, shrugging. "I just wanted to hang out. Watch a movie together. Sound good?"

He nodded. "Sure thing. Do I get any boob play?"

I rolled my eyes. "No. I just want you to hold me while we watch the movie, okay?"

He sighed, but he didn't say anything. I was guessing the reason for that is he didn't want to push me, didn't want to upset me because he didn't know how unstable I was. Hell, I didn't even know how unstable I was. But I did know that as volatile as I was, I wasn't unhinged enough to want to fool around with him. I'd already tried that once, and clearly had not enjoyed it. I just wanted a warm body for now. Someone to sit next to. Human contact. My obvious choice was and would always be my best friend or my sister…but they weren't here now.

"Movies are in the shelf under the TV. Want anything to drink?"

"Sure, I'll take a water." I went for the movies while Puck headed for what I presumed was the kitchen. I squatted down and sifted through the DVD's, eventually settling on Transformers.

"Here you go," said Puck, handing me a wine cooler before he plopped himself down on the couch.

I frowned at it as I stood up. "I said a water, Puck."

"Fresh out, babe." He grinned at me, arching an eyebrow as he used his free hand to pat the expanse of couch beside him.

"Fresh out of water?" I echoed his arched brow, turning it disdainful.

"All tapped out," he joked.

"Explains why you smell like you do, then," I countered, but I popped the movie into the DVD, turned on the TV and sat beside him.

"You love it," he said, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me to him. I settled snugly into him as I brought the wine cooler to my lips and cringed at the taste of it.

"So, how you been?" asked Puck once I'd taken another sip.

I shrugged, not bothering to answer. That was a mess I didn't want to get into again. It was already a miracle that no one at school had heard about my bridge incident, and I intended to keep it that way.

"Okay…how have the 'rents been holding up?"

I shrugged again, ignoring him by taking another drink. As far as I knew, no one in Lima was aware of just how crazy my parents' behavior had been. As long as my father was almost sobered up for work, and my mother maintained composure in public, they would probably be okay, at least regarding their reputations. That was one of the few things they still cared about, now.

Puck gave a heavy sigh, obviously exasperated with how difficult I was to talk to. "Are you and Santana talking again yet?" he asked, and it was so unexpected that I choked on the drink I'd just taken. I gulped the liquid down, coughing as it burned my throat, and Puck pounded his palm on my back in a counterproductive effort to help. I swatted his arm off me, and struggled to reign in my coughing over the next minute until finally returning to normal breathing.

No one had mentioned Santana to me for over three weeks, now. When Frannie first died, there was a flood of text messages, phone calls, and visits from Cheerios and Glee club members. Many of them (particularly the Cheerios and Glee club members) constantly asked me why Santana wasn't with me. I managed to avoid the questions from all of them, partly because I was hoping Santana would still show. But a week after Frannie's death and on the day of her funeral, my mother had asked me once if I wanted to call Santana, when I had locked myself in my bedroom and was crying so hard that I was nearly retching. I told my mother to fuck off for the first time in my life. She didn't so much as even mention I had a friend after that.

I shook my head mutely, wondering if it was obvious to him that the blood had drained from my face.

Puck only shook his head too, though his was out of disapproval. He brought a wine cooler to his lips before saying, "That's shitty, man. Just because she had to go all lezzo doesn't mean she had to ditch her best friend."

The blood returned to my face, this time congregating in my cheeks. I blushed so hard I felt as though flame licked my skin as I imagined what Puck and everyone else would say if they knew just exactly how "lezzo" Santana had already been…with me.

"Brittany is pretty hot, though." One corner of his lips pulled up in a disgusting smirk that literally made my stomach hurt, because he was obviously thinking about Santana and Brittany together. "I don't get why she'd want to stay with a girl, but I totally get why she'd want to fuck her. Brittany's flexible as fuck, plus she's a freak in the sheets. The quiet ones, man."

My brows drew together and the corners of my own lips turned down in a scowl. "You've slept with Brittany?"

He fully smirked now, wagging his brows at me. "Both of them, babe." He leaned forward, as though we needed closer proximity in order for me to catch his next words. "At the same time."

It happened all at once. Fury coursed through my body, raging through me. It was a dizzying sensation, if only because I was usually not quick to a temper, nor was I usually so taken by jealousy. Yet here I was. Completely fucking enraged that Santana had a threesome with Brittany and Puck, and completely fucking jealous that Santana had slept with not only one person, but two.

We had not been on speaking terms in four months, and who knows how much sex she'd had in such a time frame. Fucking slut.

Of course, that was still only two people that I knew of for certain. I'd slept with two people too. Finn, and Santana. Finn had been clumsy but sweet, and though we'd only had sex a handful of times, each time had been short. And Santana…..God, that was indescribable, and it had only lasted five minutes. I was certain, however, that had we not had that argument, had I just shut up and ignored what she said, it would have lasted much, much longer than five minutes.

I shuddered visibly, causing Puck's right brow to tweak up, as I was assaulted with memories of Santana and I. The first time we kissed. The first time we touched. The first time we were naked together. God, why is it that Santana could get me more wet in half a second than anyone else could in an unlimited time frame?

Puck smirked, and I knew he was aware now of how flushed I was. "That turn you on, babe? Because we can totally call them up and make it a foursome, if you're into that."

The thought of watching Santana fuck Brittany was what pushed me over the edge. I uttered a string of curse words as I surged to my feet, my empty wine cooler falling to the floor with a muffled thud. Puck looked confused.

"What?"

I ignored him, pacing back and forth from the couch to the television, and Puck remained where he was sitting, appearing flabbergasted and a little disturbed.

"Uh, what the hell are you doing, Fabray?"

I alternated between splaying my hands wide open and clenching them into tight fists as I paced the short space. Santana fucking Brittany. I hated Brittany. Maybe I hated Santana, too. Fucking bitches, both of them.

I knew I wasn't right in the head. I hadn't been right in any way at all, lately. Ever since Frannie died, I had lost something. I was unstable, and I didn't know how to solve it.

I wanted to go to Santana's house, walk through her front door, march into her bedroom and punch her right in the face. How dare she sleep with Brittany. How dare she have a threesome.

For a moment, I helplessly wondered if this was what it felt like for her every time I slept with Finn. Did her jealousy hurt as badly as mine hurt me? Or was it not the jealousy that was so painful, but this stabbing pain in my heart? My heart that always either felt too hollow or too full. There was never a peaceful in-between. I was always either so excruciatingly lonely, or full of so much unrequited love that it made my blood burn and my insides melt. I craved balance, and I would apparently never have it.

"Um, Quinn? What are you doing?" asked Puck again. This time I turned to look at him.

This asshole may have had his dick in Santana. I hadn't even been inside her before, and he had.

My blood surged and my fingertips seemed to throb. That may have been because I wanted to claw his eyes out.

She would have been so pissed off if I'd slept with someone else after our fight. It would have touched so many nerves. She wouldn't understand. "Why would Quinn be with someone else when she wouldn't be with me?" It would've broken her heart. It would've hurt her so badly.

Vengeance pulsed through me. Fuck, I wanted to hurt her as much as she'd hurt me. That complete bitch. Sleeping with one other person was one thing, but two? How many more?

As I stood there facing Puck, my chest heaving, the confusion on his face faded just a little as his eyes appraised the length of my body, lingering on my chest. Most people weren't that used to seeing me out of my Cheerios uniform. Since I quit a couple weeks ago, I'd been wearing normal clothes. That meant my chest was far more exposed than the Cheerios uniform had left it. My cleavage was showing in the blouse I was wearing, and Puck had noticed.

I felt uncomfortable under his gaze. He looked at me as though I was a piece of meat. The difference between the way he looked at me and the way Santana had looked at me was startling. Both of them had the same piercing intensity, the same blank yet focused expression as their eyes turned darker. But Santana's was so hot and full of emotion, so obviously powerful and dangerous and full of all this desire not only for my body but for me, me as a person. Puck's was empty and hungry, like a well-fed dog that was eying up a bone not because it was hungry, but just because it remembered the taste and was greedy for more.

I slowly crossed the space between us to stand in front of Puck, and carefully reached down to take the wine cooler out of his hand. He watched me as I lifted it to my lips and took a long swig. It burned my throat. I honestly didn't drink very much, all in my efforts to uphold my good Christian reputation. Now with the alcohol buzzing inside me, I realized how silly it had been. I wouldn't drink, yet I had premarital sex with Finn Hudson, and engaged in homosexual behavior with a girl I had been best friends with since I was seven. One more sin would not have made that much more of a difference.

Now I was about to commit a couple more.

"Fuck me," I told him. Surprisingly, he was unfazed by my blunt suggestion. His expression didn't even waver. It was hard, and confident, like he was used to all the girls throwing themselves at him. I struggled to prevent my face from contorting with repulsion as I stared at him. Why did so many girls throw themselves at him? His confidence wasn't sexy, it was abhorrent. The only strong effect that smirk had on me was the sense of derisive mirth at the amusing fact that he actually thought he knew what he was doing. But this was my body, and the fact that thought he knew it just because he's fucked every other girl in the school was hilarious, to say the least. It was like a person that drove one type of car and immediately thinks he knows how to drive every other type too. No, it's even worse that that, because in the end, women are so much more complex than cars, and he can't just stick his key in and expect it to turn us on.

"I thought you'd never ask," he said, flashing me a half-cocked smile before wrapping his too-big hands around my waist and pulling me into his lap. I straddled him and squeezed my eyes shut as I locked my arms around his neck and met him kiss for kiss, internally cringing at the rough feel of his stubble against my chin. I didn't like that. I never liked that.

How funny was it that he thought I told him to fuck me because I wanted him? When in reality, I wanted his mouth. Not on me, of course—no, I wanted him to do what he did best, and brag. Brag about this to the entire school, brag about fucking Quinn Fabray on his mother's couch, brag until every single person in the school knew, including Santana. Brag until she felt guilty for sleeping with him, brag until she actually grew conscious about the fact that she hurt me. Brag until she was crying, begging me to forgive her because she allowed other people to have her the way only I was supposed to.

I ignored the annoying little voice in my head that murmured, "But she tried to let you have her the way you're supposed to. She tried, and you told her no. You wouldn't let it happen."

"Oh, baby," crooned Puck as he drove his index and middle fingers into the center core of my jeans, bumping against my pubic bone. I jumped at the pain and shifted, biting his lip in my frustration at how stupid he was, at how stupid men were in general. It was a fucking vagina, not a Rubik's cube. It's not that hard. I swear the basic default for a man's technique was "pull on my penis and I'll push in your vagina." Fucking idiot.

Puck changed tactics, instead lifting me up and turning, finally dropping me down beneath him under the couch. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he sank all his body weight into me and crushed my lips under his.

God, why was I even doing this? None of it felt right. I hated how rough his skin was against mine, hated how callused his hands felt on me. Hated the strong, musky scent of him, and the taste of his tongue on mine. He tasted sharper than Finn had, less sweet and more potent. But it was nothing compared to Santana. My heart swelled and ached at the thought of her. She tasted like an explosion, like a million things I could never describe, and it was intoxicating and powerful and sweet and made my head swim. Her lips had always been so soft, so full and plump and so soft against mine. Her hands, her face, everything about her skin was so smooth and soft. When I cupped her head in my hands, my fingers were always lost in a cascade of soft, long dark hair. When I cupped Puck's head, my fingers were met with a coarse Mohawk, slick and sticky with gel. The difference was so startling and disconcerting.

If I kept my eyes closed as Puck continued to kiss me and feel up my breasts, I could almost pretend it was Santana. Except I couldn't because Santana would not be doing what Puck was doing to me. He was adept and skillful compared to Finn, but compared to Santana, he was far from it. He felt maladroit and oafish, and too rough, like he couldn't control his own lust and was only giving me this brief foreplay to placate me before he whipped his dick out.

"Here," he said, handing me the wine cooler that I had set on the table earlier. I took a drink before he followed suit, chugging nearly the whole bottle before he set it back down. Then he stood up, took his shirt off before he began to unbuckle his pants, and I remained sprawled out on the couch, feeling as though I was a tiny ball curled up at the corner. I lifted my ass to help him pull my jeans off me, and raised my arms so he could tug my shirt over my head. My fingertips dug into the crevices of his abs as he lowered himself back onto me, and I could feel him hot and hard against the flat of my stomach. He wasn't as big as Finn, at least.

I closed my eyes again, and thought of Santana the entire time. Of the jealous reaction she would surely have when she found out about this. Of what it used to feel like when it was her that was atop me, kissing my neck, sucking my flesh into her mouth and leaving her own marks all over my body.

I focused so hard on my memories of her that it almost made this entire situation bearable.

Almost.

Half an hour later, I was driving back to my house. I laughed hysterically the entire time, tears streaming down my face, as I thought how funny it was that Frannie had died from driving drunk, and here I was, driving drunk back home. I also thought it was pretty damn entertaining that the only man Frannie had ever slept with was a Puckerman, that she had fucked a Puckerman, and now, so had I.

Two months later when I realized I may be pregnant and I readied myself to go buy a pregnancy test, I laughed hysterically again on the drive to the store, thinking about how funny it was that Frannie had gotten pregnant from a Puckerman as well. And wasn't it just hilarious that I may be pregnant as well, from the son of the man Frannie had gotten pregnant from?

The irony was just too fucking hilarious. The most fucked up hilarious thing about it, though, was that I had brought it upon myself, in years' worth of self-destruction. I had just been imploding, this entire time.

So I deserved it all.