Chapter Fifteen- Meteor Shower

"We all live in a house of fire. No fire department to call. No way out. Just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down... with us trapped, locked in it" -Tennessee Williams

I was sat in AP English Literature when I first discovered this quote. It was the day I found my interest in the course was taken to new heights. I found Tennessee Williams describing the hurt and pain I felt burning my skin each day as my frozen corpse walked these halls: maintaining that picture perfect smile while inside I felt my heart slowly forgetting how it felt to feel. I found myself finally feeling something other than sadness. I found myself feeling the last shred of hope slip through my fingers. I never thought I'd live a long life, and the day Puck left; I felt my inevitable horizon drawing near as I felt myself fade into the shadows. I wrote the last shreds of my heart and existence on that billboard to attempt to save at least one fragment of the person I once was as a child. The person I foolishly dreamed I would be forever. As I screamed into the cold night air, I found nobody listening, nobody seeing. I knew my last fire exit had crumbled, and this house of fire was finally going to consume me.

Then Rachel found me.

I found myself feeling things I never felt I would. My heart beating stronger than my chest could bare. My limbs were aching for her to haunt my dreams just that little longer each night. Then when everything began to slip away, I recognized my time. I walked freely into my death knowing that it was always meant to be this way. So when I opened my eyes in that hospital, I found myself having escaped the fire. I had somehow rewritten my tale.

But it wasn't me that had wielded the pen.

It was Rachel. Always Rachel.

(Present)

"Quinn, I... I can't".

In that moment Lucy Quinn Fabray found her whole new world already broken.

She had survived. She had defied her fate. But for what purpose if the person who saved her didn't want her?

"Quinn please let me explain... I" but as Rachel's trembling voice left her hoarse throat, she found it echoing after the ghost of where Quinn had once stood. -Her eyes already struggling to understand why her head had prevented her heart from happiness yet again.

Quinn had wanted her. Quinn had finally kissed her on her own terms.

But something ached inside the Diva's chest, as those heavenly lips finally collided with her own after a lifetime apart, she felt another dark shadow choking the moment away from her.

She thought of how Puck had fought to be the man Quinn deserved. She thought of how worthless she felt in his shadow, and she thought of how Quinn only wanted her because she had lost the arms she truly wanted to hold her through this nightmare.

The last thing Rachel remembered was the feeling of her heart bursting into despair as those golden flecks finally stopped their life long dance with her heart. As the tears took over the beautiful Blonde's face, she found the golden flecks themselves seeming to shatter as if the soul behind them had finally been set free.

But as Quinn fled into the night, Rachel was left with the haunting image of those rejected eyes and flooded with only one doubt.

What if those golden flecks weren't set free, but being shattered with her words?

(7 hours before the kiss)

A single registered beep sounded sharply as her weak body cringed at the startling awakening. A second beep followed, then another; followed by another. Soon a regular pattern formed and she felt her sinuses ache with an overwhelming scream of unmanageable sounds they hadn't heard in years of sleep.

She furrowed her eyebrows to straighten the sounds, and within seconds distant voices could be distinguished. She heard footsteps leaving down a corridor; she heard that intolerable beeping and thick gasping of air.

She had no idea where she was, her whole body felt like a lifeless corpse frozen in a weak breaking state. Her chest and throat ached and her eyelids burned at the light seeping through.

That's when her senses truly awoke. The light behind her eyelids blared like angry headlights, the sounds of screams in the pouring rain and a tell tale fumbling of a careless body followed by a crash filled her ears.

With a panicked choke and ambush of instant tears that burned her sore eyes, Quinn found herself thrown into consciousness.

Her eyes desperately swam through terrified tears as she attempted to stand but failed miserably as her weak body crumbled to the ground, knocking several machines flying and cables attached to her ripped out in sharp surges of pain.

She didn't want to stand, she wanted to cry in a heap of misery on the floor, soaking up the despair and confusion that filled her at this moment.

The last thing she remembered was Rachel standing by the curb as those headlights taunted her with the star's silhouette. The image flashed angrily as she clung to the rails of the bed she had fallen from, moving to grip the IV stand in order to lift her body from the cold floor.

Her eyes frantically fought the pain her stiff body faced and searched for signs of escape from this nightmare. She spotted a light pink dressing gown on a chair across the room and willed her fragile legs to waver towards it. She slipped her trembling hands through the material, too scared to cry for help, but too cold and exposed to sit in silence.

She looked to the doorway and the stronger light calling from it.

There it was again. That light. That single flash of light around the Brunette as the sound of an angry horn cried through the cold New York rain. The image almost defeated her as she fell into the door-frame, struggling to stand as even more aching tears spilled down her trembling frame.

With the sound of the horn taunting her ears she powered into the corridor, her arms tightly holding her body secure as she found herself attempting to run from the nightmares inside her head.

Everywhere she looked she saw nurses, doctors, the sounds of coughing patients filled her ears and her gasps for oxygen grew deeper still.

"RACHEL!" her own voice screamed through her ears and mind as suddenly her chest and spine ached with the memory of agonizing pain. With the trauma of realization steadily creeping back into her terrifying reality, she reacted the only way she knew how... she hid her tears and ducked her head before quickly beginning to run down the corridors, soon a stairway, and then even more corridors.

With every step another flash of headlights.

With every moment another scream of pain.

With every breathe the sound of rain thundering around her.

With every gasp the image of a Brunette pleading her not to close her eyes.

With every second she found more tears filling as she headed towards those bright open doors in the distance.

-"Excuse me miss?" She faintly acknowledged the sound but at this point her head was screaming her away from all it knew, convinced she had to break free of this nightmare; she ran as fast as her feet would take her.

Through the open doors.

Into the cold outdoor breeze that burned her throat.

Into the wilderness that was surrounding her.

And into a world she barely recognized.

(Present)

Have you ever heard the phrase, 'only when the world stops turning?' It's used a lot, but scientists would have a field day arguing the impossibility of the statement. But in this moment, as far as Rachel was concerned; Science be dammed. After Quinn left into the night, she spent the next few hours crying hopelessly on her porch into the night air, before realizing Quinn was on her own again. It was at this point she rang Judy in a state of what can only be summarized as an 'utter sobbing panic', and was quickly reassured by a seemingly beyond words Judy Fabray, who explained Quinn arrived home around an hour ago and they had taken back to the hospital to be sure she was okay.

As she heard the words that should have eased her worries, all Rachel felt was the world quite literally stop turning, as her heart stopped beating and all she could hear was the echo of Judy's distant voice as the phone fell from her hand to the floor.

Where was she supposed to go from here?

Two weeks had passed since that night. Fourteen days, three hundred and thirty six hours and yet Rachel could barely recall any of it. All she could see was that broken face, lost in a world she no longer knew, and the way all the emotion passed from it with just two words...

"I can't".

It was as if she was confined to her bedroom, haunted by the memories no matter where she looked.

The light bulb reminded her of the trail of golden lights on Christmas Eve, leading her to Quinn's grace.

As she tossed on her bed, she heard the sound of Quinn's melodic laughter as she mocked Rachel's 'comfort clothes' before joining her on her bed to dedicate her day to making the Brunette smile again.

The window reminded her of the day snow fell in second grade. The day she would meet an Angel and her entire perspective of the world would begin to change.

-She began to dream of windows of escape where before the world felt trapped.

And now all she could see was that window had been sealed shut, harsh lights of truth shining through. She had given the last six years of her life to being Quinn's guardian angel from afar, and now Quinn had woken... now Rachel knew she had to go back to reality. Quinn would never love her the way she loved Puck, and as far as Rachel was concerned being with Quinn, would mean seeing that silent look to the ground everyday, as Quinn's eyes would confirm Rachel's fears she was only second best.

As she buried her tear stained face into her pillow, the sound of hard rain pattering against her window demanded her attention.

It was as if the window was taunting her. Mocking her foolishness. Screaming she knew better from the start. It would always end this way. Quinn would move on to where ever she would find her eternal happiness, and Rachel would be left loving the ghost of a memory for eternity.

As her dried up tear ducts ached as they threatened to flood once more, Rachel willed her body from her bed. She couldn't be here. She couldn't spend one more second in this house. But she couldn't go back to New York yet, working a couple of blocks away from where it all went wrong six years ago. She was stuck, but she was dammed if she would be trapped in ignorance.

She briefly recalled grabbing her keys and throwing her blue parka coat on before climbing into her Dad's car and pushing the pedal down as far as it would allow. But all she knew for certain was that she needed to find her perspective again.

(4 Hours before the kiss)

The stinging sensation in her feet told her she had been walking around the unfamiliar streets of Lima for far too long. She allowed her body to plummet to the nearest curb as she took in the state of her aching feet.

She gasped as she took in the blistering and bleeding.

'Had I really been walking that long?'

All Quinn knew is she had woken up in hospital, and suffered a massive state of shock as she ran through the streets of Ohio in a panicked blur. Clearly her shock had spared her the realization of her damage to her bare feet until now. She felt her eyes prickling with tears yet again. She wanted her mum, she wanted Rachel, she longed for Puck; she longed for just one familiar face to pull her free from this surreal nightmare she found herself living.

The sound of an angry horn startled her back on to the sidewalk as a blue pick up truck flew by. Suddenly Quinn became extremely aware of all the traffic surrounding her, the amount of noise, pollution flooding the sky, people trafficking past her as if she was just another crazy homeless woman on the streets. She was now fairly certain she was having an anxiety attack. And those headlights refused to escape her mind. Blinding her head until it was now screaming in agony. It was all happening again, everything around her blurring into white noise as the screams in thundering rain broke through once more. She was certain she could hear Santana crying her name, she turned frantically trying to see her friend, but to no avail. Now she could hear Finn, telling people it would all be all right, and the sound of him sheltering them from the pain.

'Why wasn't he sheltering her?'

Now she swore she could make out sirens, coming closer and closer mixed with the sounds of a screech of brakes, a crash and fumble of a corpse once more. It was all so real, and yet she couldn't see any of the people filling her ears. Then a flash as she saw a heartbroken Rachel cupping her cheek as she painfully kissed her goodbye. As her tears began to fall endlessly her hoarse throat cried out weak whimpers, desperate for these voices to show their faces. -To stop their taunting and help her out of this place. Then, suddenly it all seemed to stop.

And all she saw was a small Brunette, staring at her full of awe, surrounded by snowfall. Her bright pink wellies flooded her tiny legs, and her pink skirt hung just over her knees. Her purple coat seemed to almost entomb her body with nothing but her white-gloved fingertips poking through the sleeves. A carefully coordinating pink scarf and hat completed the look.

"You are an angel..." the small voice whispered at her in admiration.

-"Rachel?" Quinn managed to escape her lips. But the young Rachel simply stared at her with tear filled eyes and a brave, pain filled expression. She slowly reached out her arm to Quinn, her eyes never breaking contact. Just as Quinn felt her mouth open to call out to the girl in the middle of the road, the sound of a car approached and it drove straight into Rachel, the young ghost vanishing into the dusk sky.

Rachel, the car, the sounds of screams and rain... it all came back.

Quinn remembered it all. The accident. Rachel declaring her feelings and telling Quinn she was letting her go. All of it came back, and now Quinn found her weak and fragile body standing in the middle of a sidewalk, gasping for air as a few curious faces stared at her in wonder.

-"Excuse me, are you alright?"

Quinn realized the man was aware that she was standing, panting intently in a hospital robe and pink dressing gown with nothing on her feet. It was no surprise he felt inclined to ask. She mustered all the strength in her unused lungs for the one question she now desperately needed the answer to.

"What date is it?"

The man looked at her incredulously, the woman who appeared to be his wife nodded at him to answer the young Blonde in distress.

"Erm it's the 21st of July..." he stuttered uncertainly. Quinn's heart momentarily stopped thudding in attempt to crack free from her ribcage. The 21st of July. It had been almost a month. She had lost almost a month of her life. Then it occurred to her...

The buildings, while she recalled some, they all appeared so different. Even the hospital main entrance was unfamiliar to her. A month no longer added up in her breaking mind.

"What... w... what year?" She croaked, her eyes now welling beyond control. The man stepped forward towards her, he attempted to reach out and calm her down but she threw his hand from her shoulder, edging backward as she looked to his wife in desperation.

The woman looked at Quinn with an overwhelming expression of sympathy, she seemed to have guessed a rough idea of what was happening to this wandering hospital patient.

-"2018".

Quinn fell back a few steps as she found her entire face suddenly void of emotion. '2018... that meant over six years. Six years in hospital. Six years of my life taken overnight.'

Quinn looked up to see the man and woman approach her softly.

"Here, let us take you back to the hospital, I'm sure someone can help you there..." the man kindly offered with his wife supportively on his arm. Quinn simply shook her head in return.

She was no longer hyperventilating. She was no longer panicking. But she was no longer feeling. Quinn simply found her legs struggling to hold her body as her feet took off on their own accord. After a block or so, Quinn found herself outside a row or shops she used to divulge in throughout high school. -Their mannequins still and non-judgmental through the shining glass window.

That's when she finally saw it.

Her hand reached out to her reflection in the shop window as she traced the cold image staring back at her. Her hair was longer, now past her shoulders and messed up by the breeze. Yet it still seemed to shine and lacked the tell tale split ends anyone would have after such little care for so long.

Somebody had been cutting and looking after her hair... -After her.

Her nails were trimmed neatly and her hands trembling from the notion of knowing someone had attended her well being so passionately.

Her face was matured, still graceful and striking but with more prominent cheekbones. Her baby fat had melted away and she was now staring into the scared, tired eyes of a young girl trapped in a young woman's body.

-So much time had passed physically and so little time mentally. Quinn found her eyes unable to cry as they took in the realization that she had only one feeling at this horrific moment in time.

She was terrified.

And she needed to find someone she knew, she needed to find then soon. As she pulled her hand from the window, she noted the space where Puck's ring used to be. A flash entered her mind, the sound of applause, a stage and Puck smiling softly in his military uniform. -She knew where she needed to go.

(Present)

Rachel looked down to her knuckles and registered the way they had turned white from the extremity she was gripping the steering wheel with. In the back of her mind she knew she should have left a note, or at least took her phone with her. When her Dad's came home to discover no car and no Rachel they would fly into a panic. She had barely left her room in two weeks and refused to leave the house point blank. Supposedly Sam and Santana were headed round today to try and get her mobile again. In a dark way, Rachel smirked at the thought that Santana would probably brag how Rachel just heard her name and did as she was told.

She hoped no one would worry too much.

But she also knew she would never function again until she regained her clarity on life. The meaning to it, and why her's was remotely significant now she had served her purpose of taking care of Quinn.

She had been so dedicated, she remembered Judy having to claw her phone away from her when she visited a few months ago to find Quinn's hair hadn't been cut annually as her personal stylist was supposed to do. The woman received a bonus each year due to the extra lengths Rachel made her go to, having to abandon New York once a month to pamper a lifeless patient in a hospital.

Needless to say Rachel was threatening to fire her just as Judy took the phone and sighed how it had been a long day and it honestly didn't matter, all while holding the crying Rachel in her arms.

Rachel had existed purely for Quinn. Or at least, she had told herself she did. After Quinn gave her life for her, Rachel made sure she achieved all of her previous dreams, she refused to waste the life Quinn had gifted her. But at the same time she felt that all these milestones were merely empty gestures without Quinn in the audience applauding her each and every time.

Now Quinn had woken, she found her fears confirmed. Everything she had achieved was worthless without Quinn. She had built her life around her, and yet when Quinn offered herself on a platter, Rachel couldn't do it. Everything felt tainted. She couldn't accept being a back up to Puck, having Quinn pretend to love her rather than be alone; even though considering how much she wanted the Blonde an idiot would have accepted this compromise.

But when Quinn kissed her, she was filled with the memory of National's. She told Quinn she would move on. She did this, lying to both Quinn and herself; so that Quinn could be with someone who really loved her.

Puck was missing in action and may never have come back, but Rachel knew that if after all this time Quinn had still worn that ring, that she had never loved Rachel the same way back. She never would. At eighteen years old, Rachel knew she had to set Quinn free to be with the love of her life, who ever he would be.

So as she kissed Quinn at twenty-four years old, she knew the exact same voice would speak its name until she reinforced the selfless decision.

She found Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast mocking her conscience.

-If she truly loved Quinn. She would let her go.

As the rain thudded against the windshield, she pulled the car to a stop and stared up at the large shadow cast over her.

She would find her clarity, from the place where it was so poorly clouded all those years ago.

(2 hours before the kiss)

The soft grass chilled her wounded feet. The cool summer air surrounded her as the last scrapes of light had almost faded from the sky. She knew she should go and find somewhere warm to stay, but if she didn't do this first she would never forgive herself.

She passed them one by one, knowing she wouldn't rest until she knew for certain. As she came to Puck's grandmother's she knew she was going to finally find him if her dream had been telling the truth.

She peered carefully at the dark stone slab, noting it's fine detail and newly laid flowers. She only met his grandmother as a child, but from what she knew, the woman was nothing less than a martyr to his family.

Her feet stopped as she stood at the neighboring white slab. Her trembling hand slowly lifted to her quivering lip as she took in the sight before her. She found her weak dehydrated body could no longer support itself as her legs gave way beneath her.

She fell to the ground, her knees burying their sorrows in the grass as her eyes shut drastically to shield her from the shock.

'Noah Jeremiah Puckerman, beloved son, brother and friend. Bravery is when you no longer cower in safety, and begin rising to those who need you'

She cried for her loss, she cried for his sacrifice; and she cried for the life they never got to have. She found her body numb with the knowledge she had broken them. She had been selfish and caused this, she had deserved every last second of life she had lost; he had deserved so much better than the broken mess she had given him. She no longer cared for finding somewhere warm; she just needed to lie in the setting sun with him one last time. Imagine his strong arms holding her close and telling her it would be okay, that he forgave her. He said he would love her until he died, and he kept that promise. He lived his life, and that she should do the same with hers. -Not live in a shadow of guilt and regret.

As she found her hands touching the soil below her, she tried to picture him in her mind as she reached out and begged him to somehow hear the only words she had been desperate to say since he was declared missing in action.

"I'm so sorry..."

(Present)

The ladder rattled miserably as she climbed, her clothes getting ruined from the pouring rain. The night was getting darker by the second, but Rachel needed this; she needed to finally break free of the curse Lucy Quinn Fabray enslaved upon her heart all those years ago.

As she reached the top, she clambered across the metal to the back of the billboard before loosing her footing suddenly on the wet surface and landing harshly onto her back. The metal clanged into the night air as the Brunette groaned in agony at the blow to her spine.

She found herself overcome and laughing suddenly...

'even when getting over Quinn the Blonde managed to hurt her'.

She erased the thought as she stared directly up at the darkening sky, almost feeling content in her display of pure pathetic fallacy. Her smile faded as she felt her tears pricking against the current of the rain.

-"When will you let me go, Quinn?"

She needed to go over everything; she needed to understand how she let it all happen. She had to understand how she allowed herself to become so conflicted. There was a time when Rachel Barbara Berry would laugh in the face of peril, mainly because she believed herself far too intelligent to ever be in it. But now she found herself staring into oblivion with an ache in her spine, her body seemingly having lost the will to even get up.

She mentally decided there was no reason she couldn't continue her epiphany whilst doing what she came here to do. Rachel slowly reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a torch. With a simple flick of a switch, she found a bright spotlight illuminating words an eighteen-year-old version of herself had found the strength to practice.

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." -Dr. Seuss

-What had happened to that strength? The courage she had felt as she kissed Quinn goodbye at National's. What happened to that visionary, to make her fall so drastically back into the despair she felt at the beginning.

The light began to flicker poorly, of all the things happening to her at this moment in her life; Rachel refused to let a stupid torch die on her too. She fumbled with the device, whacking it angrily on the mental surface as she sat up to allow her tears to fall as she fought to keep at least one light on in her life.

With a final clang the torch suddenly blasted back to it's full strength. Rachel smiled in awe, the simple action of a torches batteries lasting longer than intended gave her a sign that the clarity she so desperately needed wasn't as far away as she feared.

As her tears fell she found she had to bite the corner of her bottom lip to hold the smile that threatened to over take her face. In a gesture of victory she ignored the pain in her back and stood upright, raising her left arm to shine the torch at the billboard once more.

Slowly, she shone the light over all the red and black words in place there. It was as if they danced in the harmony of a stubborn love, the most powerful love of all; an unrequited love.

Her heart seemed to clench in her chest as her body fell numb as it traced each and every word of their story. She had fallen head over heals for the writer of this story, and yet that writer failed to reason her existence at all. Quinn never knew who she was. Quinn never knew she was watching from afar the whole time from this billboard. It was always a mystery to the Blonde. A mystery that Rachel accepted would remain beautiful in it's uncharted territory.

As she reached her final quote, she noted the touch of red below, moving the torch carefully she saw an arrow pointing directly down.

Quinn had always been strange, but Rachel had never noted this piece before. She memorized this billboard in her sleep; she had come back several nights since the accident and never noticed the icon before. She reached out and traced the chipped paint tenderly... the paint was worn and had been here as long as the rest of the artwork.

'What do you mean?' she cursed in her mind. Then almost as quickly as her eyebrows shot up and her eyes stopped crying, Rachel found herself using her torch to follow the arrows direction. She cautiously lowered the torches gaze until it reached the metal railings on which she stood.

As she squinted her eyes she noted a splash of red colour shining amongst the torches now metallic gaze. Rachel moved the torch across the floor, now seeing an array of red splashing across the flooring. But the painted words were lost amongst the rain, and her torch wasn't bright enough to illuminate the entire surface. Rachel paced back and forth, desperate to catch the words, but failing to follow the message.

It almost seemed like the letters were...

'Back to front?'

Rachel found her body rushing through the ache in her back as she clambered to the ladder, her limbs already taking action as her heart put itself on hold until further notice.

As she reached the wet, muddy ground, Rachel's feet quickly walked directly under the shadow of the scaffolding and shone her torch up, hoping the maximized ray would be bright enough.

As her eyes filled with tears, she found them blinking frantically as if in their own personal state of shock of what they were now transferring to Rachel.

Covering the scaffolding was giant red letters, brightly screaming a message designed for only Rachel's eyes to see.

'I left him.'

The large font taunting Rachel's confused mind as her eyes scanned the painted red siren of words repeatedly in doubt. Almost as if Quinn knew the way Rachel would react, she had clarified her own meaning directly below in even larger lettering.

Beneath the metal Rachel had stood on for years trying to make sense of her feelings for the Blonde, was the hidden message:

'I choose you, Rachel.'

(6 Years ago)

No matter how hard she tried, Quinn failed to escape his face from her mind. The way in which the cruel video chat had forced her to watch his tears fall in spite of him desperately trying to hold them back, haunted her mind. Santana had held her weak frame for hours after-wards, oblivious she had broke off her engagement, just being there for her best friend.

Quinn asked her to pick her up the second she awoke at Rachel's the next day, full of guilt and shame for what had happened in her drunken admission to her inner desires. A kiss would have been a betrayal, but many who knew them would have seen what Quinn and Rachel had almost done as beyond treachery. Puck deserved so much better, she hadn't lied to Rachel when she said she had only kissed her because she missed Puck. But she had conveniently left out the part about her also telling her to stop because she knew both Rachel and Puck deserved better than what she was doing to them. As much as she had battled with it, Quinn had finally admitted to herself the truth about how she felt about Rachel.

Somewhere, somehow in all the midst of everything she noticed her. She realized she had always been there, even when from afar. And after the way Rachel had reacted last night, and ever since she wrote her message on the billboard in front of her, she had suspected the truth.

Rachel looked defeated as Quinn wrote the advice 'Tell Her' onto the billboard. Almost as though she was ashamed. And last night when Quinn asked her to stop, Rachel's face wasn't of a drunken girl rejected in a moment of loneliness. It was of a girl who had just had her heart ripped from her chest. Despite all of it, Rachel still held Quinn as she cried that night; she had put her own heartbreak to the side for Quinn.

That was the moment Quinn understood.

The billboard.

The one always catching her.

The longing stares and the one she couldn't have.

It had all been Rachel, and she had always wanted Quinn knowing she never could.

When Santana picked her up, she had agreed to cover for Quinn and pretend they had Cheerio's practice to spare Rachel more hurt. The Latina never asked why, but she seemed to understand Quinn needed her in that moment more than words could ever adequately express. Quinn had already hurt enough people, and she knew she had to talk to one before she could finally stop that.

The video signal had been terrible; she could vaguely hear Puck stammering in confusion after she admitted what happened to him. She tried to keep her tears at bay as she didn't deserve to be the one crying, and Puck simply stared in sadness at her...

"Why?"

Instead of 'screw you' or hanging up, he asked why. And Quinn realized why she loved him. He was actually considering forgiving her drunken betrayal. But she knew she couldn't allow him to. Instead she told him she knows it happened because she was feeling things she shouldn't have, and she was wrong to accept his proposal so young. She wasn't ready for that commitment, and she shouldn't have ever denied that.

"I can't marry you, Puck"... she recalled taking her hand and rubbing the ring around her finger. She told him it was because she loved him, that she couldn't marry him. Not when he could find someone who would never of allowed something like what she did to happen. She told him he deserved better, and before hanging up she said the last thing she needed him to hear...

"I love you".

But what had truly rattled Quinn was Puck's response. Just as her finger hovered over the end call option, she heard the words...

"I love you too".

She knew why she had fallen for him, and in that moment she knew she had finally done the right thing. He was innocent, pure... perfect. And she knew he would love again, and this time; they would love him, and only him back.

Quinn had been dropped off at her house that afternoon with the knowledge she had finally done the right thing. And come Monday at school she would tell Rachel. And she would finally tell her how she felt. Quinn was making things right with the world, and for once she felt herself seeing a bigger picture for her life.

Everything was starting to happen for her.

Then that evening she heard a knock at her door.

As the door open she heard her mothers concerned voice.

Followed by the sound of crying and another voice.

Mrs. Puckerman.

Quinn felt her feet moving, but it was only as she felt her feet hit the bottom of the stairs and she took in Mrs. Puckerman's tear filled face that her heart clenched. At first she expected a vicious slap across her well deserving face.

But after taking in Mrs. Puckerman's expression, and the way her lip trembled in despair rather than disgust... Quinn found her heart stop beating altogether. It was as if she already knew something was wrong, and that something had happened to him as she felt her own eyes fill as her stomach clenched as she found the will to say the words she finally needed to say...

"Puck?"

(Present)

She pounded on the door as if her hands would freeze if they stopped the notion even for a second.

"Hello? Is anybody there? Please, please open the door!" her voice traveled across the street let alone across the front porch. Rachel stood back slightly defeated. What if Quinn simply didn't want to see her? What if Judy was with her upstairs pretending to not be home?

What if Quinn was right by the door? Hiding, afraid of what it was Rachel wanted to say to her.

Rachel found herself immediately softening in posture. She tried to hold back a toxic mixture of excitement, heartache, confusion and overwhelming hope. She slowly approached the door, placing a delicate trembling hand on the white sturdy wood before softly trying one last time.

"Quinn?"

She was met with silence. All the lights were switched off in the house, and on her way to the door Rachel noticed two newspapers jammed in the unopened letterbox. No one was in. Rachel was no longer wishful thinking and now asking the uncertain question in her mind.

'Where are they?'

"See what would I do without you Santana?" Sam asked as he wiped down the bar and threw the towel over his broad shoulder.

"Well I imagine you'd have no customers on days like this..." She answered smugly with a smirk threatening to break into a full on applause at her own dedication to her alcoholism. The bar was gathering dust as the rain poured outside. It was positioned in the center of Lima and nobody wanted to leave the safety of his or her suburban fortresses and risk the rain for a night out.

Santana had been kind enough to head back with Sam to keep him company after they both went to Rachel's to discover no diva, and instead two worried fathers. They would probably never admit it, but the incident at National's Senior Year, and losing Puck had solidified the New Directions. Each and everyone of them got over their differences prior the event and had learned to lean on each other to help each other through the pain.

Prior Quinn's accident Sam certainly never would have found himself enjoying the company of the bitch who christened him 'trouty mouth' that's for sure.

Just as Sam reached up to turn off the T.V. in acceptance he had to give up and close early, the doors of the bar burst open.

"The Fabray's where are they?" a distressed, panicked Rachel flew into the bar, soaked through and oblivious to their dumbfound expressions.

"Rach, your Dad's have been worried sick! Where were you? They thought you might have gone back to New York without saying goodbye" Sam returned as he made his way over to her, attempting to take off her wet coat but met with a reluctant Rachel backing away from him quickly as if his touch burned.

"No, the Fabray's!" She desperately tried again, "I went to the Fabray's but... but they're not home, and they won't answer their calls and I need..."

"-Rachel, I came over to tell you today" Santana's voice broke Rachel's panicked rant as she was met with sympathetic eyes. Rachel found her heart thudding inside her chest as it dawned on her she wasn't about to like what she was going to hear.

"Santana, where are they?" She spoke in a dry, hoarse voice.

Santana looked to Sam for help, but he just stuttered in response, almost as if to say she was on her own, as he didn't want to deliver the blow here.

"Look, Rachel I..." Santana began.

"Santana?" Rachel impatiently pleaded, her eyes now begging the Latina to tell her already, tears threatening to spill.

"Judy is staying with Frannie at the moment. She needs to be around family for a while" Santana softly spoke; with Rachel waiting for the other painful half she knew was inevitable.

"And Quinn? She left Quinn?" Rachel sounded hurt, she couldn't believe Judy would even consider abandoning her youngest daughter unless...

-"Quinn left her Rachel".

Rachel felt her heart finally give way; she knew it was to simple.

She was too late; yet again she caused Quinn pain and only realized it when the damage was done. She didn't know how she was supposed to fix this one. She just knew she needed to know it all.

"Where?" she whispered in attempt not to cry in front of them.

"She left last week. The hospital gave her the all clear and she told Judy she needed to find herself a new life", each word pierced Rachel's chest, her breathing getting more and more vague, "apparently someone she used to know offered her an opportunity and she accepted and just... left" Santana finished.

Rachel found herself struggling to stand, clearly Sam noticed as he was no longer behind the bar and was now carefully leading her to a stool.

"I'm sorry Rachel, I found out last week and Quinn asked me not to tell you but I told Sam yesterday and he said you needed to hear it. I wanted to tell you today, but you weren't in" her words now seemed but a blur to Rachel. She vaguely registered Santana saying Quinn was okay and still in contact with Judy, she just wouldn't tell anyone where she was as she needed to find a new life for herself. She needed to start again.

Rachel wanted to cry, she wanted to scream. But she knew it would be pointless. Quinn had left and didn't want to be found, how would she ever tell her now? It was hopeless.

As a single tear splashed against the bar surface, Rachel swore she could hear the sound of her still heart finally giving up.

First things first. Thank you for the reviews, I have officially decided I want 100 by the end of this story, I have a way to go; please help! It genuinely helps us write better and quicker for you!

Second, this is fun. I have a link

Simply go on Youtube, and after "com/" copy & paste the below link.
watch?v=pUGlodw3H30&list=HL1342723720&feature=mh_lolz

Now I suggest you watch this link, I found it very inspiring. And as a result, one of the scenes in this chapter was completely based of this inspiration. I would like you to then attempt to guess which scene I based on it! C'mon, try it! Get inspiration from anything!

And lastly, I'd like to give a BIG THANK YOU to "1LK0NB1", I'm fairly certain you've reviewed basically every chapter of this story and re-read it a few times. It is hearing things like the reviews you send that genuinely make writing that much more enjoyable... -hearing that what I write is enjoyable to others.