Le O dans TOC

“Okay guys, it’s gonna be your turn,are you ready? If you forgot the lyrics, just, like, move your lips to the rhythm, no-one should notice!”

Finn Hudson, a thirty-something tall and broad guy, is giving his last advice to the New Directions, theMcKinley High School Glee Club, which he’s been in charge of for over10 years now.

Here it is, the great moment: the Glee club is on stage. Backstage, Finn joins his friends who came to support him, the ones from the time he himself was in Glee club. Rachel, Artie, Tina, Mike, Marley, Jake, Puck, Brittany, Ryder, Unique, Blaine, Santana. All the ones who could came. It is kind of a tradition; for each competition each of them tries to come in order to re-live the emotions they all felt when they were the competitors.

“Hey Rachel you’re here!” exclaims Santana, walking into the girls bathrooms. “I was wondering where you were all this…”

She suddenly stops talking when she sees what her friend just hid behind her back.

“What are you doing?!”

Blood drops to the floor.

“Rachel?! What is going on, give me that!”

She pushes the small woman against the bathroom wall and manages to talk the object from her. It is a piece of broke mirror.

“But what… Stay here, I’ll go get Blaine!”

Santana runs away in the corridor. Rachel stays here in silence, her back still against the wall. When the young doctor and the latina come back, they find Rachel standing still, in the same position Santana left her, her face now flooded with tears. Blaine slowly takes Rachel wrist. It is covered in blood.

“I always an emergency kit in my car, can you make her a tourniquet while I go get it?”

While talking, he takes off his belt and hands it to Santana, then runs to his car.

Executing Blaine’s orders, the latina tries to talk to her friend.

“Rachel, I don’t understand. Why? You have a wife who loves you, and whom you love, and two adorable little girls. And you have us. No? Are you not happy ? Rachel, talk to me. Please.”

Only the silence, interrupted now and then by Rachel’s sobbing, answers her.

“Listen, I get that you may not wanna talk to me, but promise you’ll talk to Quinn, okay? I’m gonna call her, so that she can come get you.”

These words get the brunette to react.

“No! I don’t want her to know, she’ll blame herself. Don’t call her!”

“Don’t be silly, she will notice anyway. Have you seen the size of your bandage? And you can’t just stay that way, you have to talk to her! She’s you wife!”

“Santana, I…”

But she has already composed Quinn’s number and gestures for the brunette to shut up. The others, who noticed their long absence, just found them and start massing before the bathroom door. Blaine comes back and answers all the silent questions with a nod before closing the door. Thanks to the tourniquet, the bleeding has almost stopped. Blaine whips the wound and takes a better look at it.

“There’s no need to suture it, it is not deep enough. And there hasn’t been a too big blood loss. It is lucky you arrived on time, Santana.

“I knew something was going on. Psychic Mexican third eye!” jokes the latina, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

By the time Blaine is done with the bandage, Quinn has arrived. The others got back to the New Directions who are waiting for their results. The young blonde irrupts into the bathroom and throws herself at Santana.

“What happened ? Where’s Rachel ?”

She finally notices her wife sitting on the floor, Blaine by her side. Then she acknowledges the blood and the floor and on her wife’s clothes. She throws herself at her and wraps her into her arms.

“What happen? What is going on? Santana told me you were wounded and that I had to get here as soon as I could. God I was so scared!”

Rachel’s tears start falling again, tears of shame this time.

“I think you should talk once you get home.” Santana advises softly.

Quinn takes her wife by the hips, helps her to her feet and leads her to the car. She is so overwhelmed that she doesn’t even think to thank her friends.

On the way home, both women remain silent. You can read the concern on Quinn’s face, her head is full of unanswered questions. She still doesn’t know how Rachel got wounded, let alone the fact that she did it on purpose. Rachel is still crying. How can she explain to Quinn that she self-harmed, without her thinking that she is to blame, even though it is everything but that. The atmosphere in the car couldn’t be heavier.

From the car to the apartment door, they still don’t talk. Once they are inside the house, Quin finally finds something to say. In a voice she tries to make sounds soft and reassuring, she says:

“Go get changed, you can’t stay in this blood-covered clothes.”

While Rachel undresses herself, Quinn gets her new clothes from the wardrobe. A long-sleeved shirt so that the kids won’t see their mother’s bandage.

I have to get the girls from school. Ask Santana the results from the Regionals, they’ll want to know and will find it weird if we can’t answer.”

Quinn feels guilty for leaving Rachel in such a state. She started wondering if she did to herself and is scared to death at the thought she could do it again while she’s gone. But, in front f her daughters, she has to act normal.

For the remaining of the evening Rachel and Quinn take care of their daughters, the events of the afternoon forgotten for a short time off. But once the kids are gone to bed, they still have to talk about it. Non of them know how to begin.

As her wife is putting her pajamas on Rachel, who’s sitting on the bed, finally finds the courage to talk:

“I’m sorry, Quinn.”

The blonde raises her head.

“Sorry? What for?”

At first, she doesn’t understand. Then, realization starts to read on her face. She was right then, Rachel hurt herself on purpose. She doesn’t know what to feel. Anger, against Rachel because she was willing to abandon her family, against herself because she didn’t see anything coming, guilt, because she may be the cause of this act, or sadness, to know that her wife is feeling so bad that she could attempt to her own life.

“You mean you did..? But, why..? What..? Are you not happy? Did I do something?”

“No! No, Quinn, don’t be silly, of course not. It’s just… I was not a suicide attempt, you know.”

“What was it then?!”

Tears start falling down Rachel’s face again. Quinn reaches for her side of the bed and wraps her into her arms.

“Rachel, talk to me. I’m not saying I’ll understand what you did, but I’ll at least try.”

“It’s… I… wanted to, like, punish myself.”

“What?! But what for?”

“For several reasons… I can’t manage to become something. During Glee club, at my fathers, everyone was telling me “you’re a star”, “you’re meant to be on stage”. But look at what I am doing, I am still working at the same diner I was when I was a student. All I seem to be able to do s understudy roles, when I can have them! I don’t bring anything to this house. I feel like I’m not working hard enough. Like I have become pretentious when, in fact, I am nothing.”

“Rachel, stop that. I believe in you and I know you will succeed. You must follow your dreams, this is what we teach our daughters, right? I have a more stable job with my agency because my dream was to have my own real estate agency, not because I couldn’t do anything else. You have to go on, not matter the cost.

“Quinn…”

The blonde makes her wife shut up by kissing her. A long kiss on the lips she loves so much. Rachel smiles, but goes on:

“It’s not just that. It also has to do with the girls. The fact that they get harassed, that adults can say things in front of them… it makes me sick. I feel like we’re imposing them that, this abnormal life they didn’t choose.”

“Once more, stop that. You know the girls love us and wouldn’t want of another life.”

“I know, but…”

Quinn lies down of the bed and motion for Rachel to join her. The brunette snuggles into her wife’s side, her head resting on her breast. Silence settles. Lost in her thoughts, Quinn takes Rachel’s wrist and starts to run her fingers softly on the bandage. Rachel chills at the strange feeling. After a few minutes, she breaks the silence.

“They are only 4 and 5. It’s only the beginning. I don’t want to end up with two teenage girls who hate us for having kept them from a normal life. The more their classmates will grow up, the meaner the will get… Myself, who had two dads, I should have realized that. But I thought things had changed since then. I was to idealistic.”

“Things DO have change. Fort a start, at our parents’ time, we couldn’t have got married and legally have kids. And teachers at school won’t allow bad behaviors against them.”

“It is not just school. There’s the looks, the talking in the street…”

“We’ll protect them, Rachel. They’ll understand. If you doubt of our family yourself, how do you except others to respect it? Believe in us, believe in them.”

“I don’t know, I can’t help but being scared…”

Suddenly, the bedroom door opens and two small heads, a blonde one and a brunette one, appear in the opening.

“Mums, I had a bad dream.” begins the brunette one.

“And I don’t want to sleep alone.” adds the blonde one.

“Oooh come here!” exclaims Quinn, who fakes being angry, but who can’t help a smile to appear across her face.

The two kids climb on the bed and snuggle between their mothers. Once they’re settled, Quinn breaks the silence:

“Would you like to have a mummy and a daddy like most of your friends at school, instead of two mums ?”

“What for?” asks Stacy.

“You don’t want us anymore?” adds Kayla, her voice sounding scared and on the edge of crying. “Did we do something bad ?”

“No, no, don’t worry!” reassures Quinn, kissing the top of Kayla’s head. “Who would want to get rid of two girls as cute as you are? Forget what I just said and go to sleep, it’s late!”

A few minutes later, the girls are asleep again and starting to snore.

“Thank you.” whispers Rachel.

As an answer, Quinn would like to kiss her, but in the current situation, all she can do is reach for her wife’s foot with hers, and this is what she does.

“Promise me that, from now on, whatever you’re feeling, you’ll talk to me first, okay?”

“I promise.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And, quickly, the young women both fall asleep, the feet linked and their daughters between them.