1,218A/N: Remember in the first few episodes of Glee? The angsty Quinn Babygate drama and Rachel's first offer of friendship? "I would've tortured you if the roles were reversed, you know…" Quinn tells her. I personally feel that… Well, of course Quinn would torture her. Everyone writes stories about how Babygate changes Quinn into a more openly loving individual or how Rachel comforts and takes care of her during the pregnancy… And, voila, a relationship blossoms! While I love these stories, what if we switched the roles around? How would Quinn treat pregnant-Rachel? How does Quinn grow into a person capable of loving Rachel, the girl who supposedly tried to steal Finn away from Quinn, talks incessantly, and really is a spoiled diva? Can Quinn love Rachel? I think I'll try and find out…
If femme-slash isn't your thing, you should not bother reading further.
Disclaimer: If I owned Glee, Brittana would not be pushed aside. Needless to say, I do not own Glee.
If the Roles Were Reversed
Rachel walked down the hall in a slight daze. The glazed over look in her eyes had become commonplace as of late.
She was so consumed in whatever thoughts had her so obviously pre-occupied that she never saw Karofsky coming. The ice-cold, blue slushy dripped from her eyelashes and her nose and her chin and down the front of her shirt.
The students in the hallway at the time burst into laughter – after all, seeing the losers of the school receiving a slushy facial never did get old.
Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez, and Brittany Pierce were all witness to Rachel's unfortunate circumstances. They laughed loudly along with the rest.
Santana and Brittany moved off down the hall, passing on either side of Rachel – Santana made a snide comment about how the color blue went great with her argyle while Brittany lightly patted Rachel on the head as they passed. They linked pinkies and turned the corner.
Quinn finally tore her gaze away from the clearly-humiliated form of Rachel Berry to her locker. While a smile still played at the corner of her lips, she realized that something was nagging at her mind…
When she realized what it was, she turned back to the location previously occupied by the little diva only to find that she had disappeared. She turned and saw that Rachel was already towards the end of the hallway, turning into a bathroom.
Quinn felt something strange stir in her chest as she realized that Rachel hadn't made a single move to wipe the offending slushy from her face; instead, the only move she had made was to protectively wrap her arms around her stomach…
Quinn decided not to try and decipher her thoughts; she had to get to glee practice.
When she arrived, it was clear that she had missed out on something. Everyone was leaning over the piano, hurriedly whispering to each other. Probably about the latest bit of gossip Mercedes and Kurt had managed to dig up. She noted that Rachel wasn't there yet – but it would be silly to think that the pint-size firecracker could've gotten to glee before Quinn; she had never been slushied, but she assumed that it would take at least 20 minutes to be fully prepared for a public reappearance after such an ordeal.
Quinn pointedly ignored the crowded piano and instead sat down in a chair in the back row and took out her cell phone. As she was in the process of writing a text, Santana and Brittany came up and sat on either side of her.
"You're never going to guess what we just heard, Q," Santana said, a clearly shocked expression written across her features.
"Yeah, Q," Brittany said with a grin. "You'll totally never guess."
Quinn sighed. "Well then, don't make me guess. I really don't have the patience for that anyway. Spill."
"Ok well, Kurt just broke the news to all of us – and he heard it from Mercedes who heard it from her older brother who goes to school at Carmel who heard it from his best friend who is in Vocal Adrenaline that their male lead, Jesse St. James, has managed to impregnate a student here at McKinley," Santana said in one fantastic breath.
Quinn's eyebrow was raised dangerously high as she said, "S, I told you not to make me guess…"
Brittany leaned forward at this point and whispered in a conspiratorial fashion, "Q, it's Rachel."
What happened next vaguely resembled one of those cliché, slow-motion scenes in Quinn's mind – everything really did seem to slow down as she processed what Santana and Brittany had just told her. Not only was someone at their school pregnant at the tender age of barely-16, but that person was Rachel Berry.
Lively, loud Rachel Berry.
Rachel Berry who was constantly bossing the glee club members around.
Rachel Berry who Quinn's boyfriend, Finn, had admitted to kissing a couple of months ago (resulting in their subsequently very rocky relationship).
Rachel Berry – Jewish, two gay dads, and so much talent leaking out of every pore of her body that Quinn knew she would never be a Lima Loser.
At least, that was before…
Quinn would be lying to herself if she said that she hadn't noticed a change in Rachel's behavior. It became particularly apparent when April Rhodes abandoned New Directions during their Invitational intermission. Berry had stepped in and, quite literally, saved the day. But she had been so subdued about it… Quietly insisting that she was simply doing it for her "friends."
Some friends they were, talking about Rachel behind her back, spreading rumors about a pregnancy that they had no real proof of, and generally being fairly horrible friends to the girl who continued to take daily slushy showers in the hallways and received constant verbal abuse from the jocks and cheerleaders – something Quinn had actively participated in and even encouraged in the past.
And then Quinn realized with a swift mental kick to the butt that she paid a lot more attention to Rachel Berry than she probably should.
"Speak of the devil…" Santana muttered under her breath as, quite literally, every head in the choir room turned and pierced Rachel with their gazes.
Rachel's head was down as she entered the room; one glance at her, and it was apparent that she was, yet again, deep in thought. She sat down in a chair on the far side of the front row and pulled a notebook out of her bag. She flipped the notebook open, seemed to find the page she was looking for, and then set to vigorously writing something.
Before Quinn and Santana could stop her, Brittany was up and skipping over to Rachel's side of the room. The entire glee club was looking on in horrified anticipation as Brittany gracefully took a seat right next to Rachel.
"Hi Rachel," she sweetly said to the other girl.
Rachel looked up then, slightly startled before returning the greeting. "Good afternoon, Brittany. How are you?" Her voice was soft. Quinn thought that it seemed much softer than, perhaps, a few weeks previous.
"I'm good, Rachel," Brittany said with a bright smile. "How are you? Have you started picking out names yet? I have so many great names picked out for babies. My cat helps me keep a list of them. I could show it to you if you want."
Rachel's head snaps up to Brittany's face faster than Quinn thought possible. New Directions' members continued to stare at the scene unfolding before them with morbid fascination as realization dawned on Rachel's face. She caught the eyes of everyone in the room, one-by-one, then quickly returned her attention to Brittany.
Quinn noted with a bit of jealously that Rachel composed herself incredibly well.
"No, Brittany. I haven't thought of any names yet. I really haven't given myself much time to think about the details at all." Gasps were heard all around as the rumors were confirmed, straight from the source. Mercedes, Kurt, and Santana had their cell phones out in a flash. The whole school would know within minutes.
Brittany just smiled and said, "Well, I like naming stuff. Just let me know if you need any help." She got up, patted Rachel lightly on the head again, and returned to sit next to Santana. "San, Rachel's gonna let me help her name her baby," she whispered excitedly in Santana's ear.
"Gosh, Berry – I think the pool of names should be quite easy to choose from. There's always 'RuPaul, Jr' or 'Elmo.' My personal choice though would be 'Midget Spawn.' I like it. It's descriptive." Rachel pointedly ignored her and continued scribbling away in her notebook.
Quinn pictured Rachel, months from now, cradling a little baby in her arms…
"I guess you didn't follow our advice and get sterilized, did you, Berry? I guess it's too late now," Quinn snapped, sneering across the room, refusing to admit to herself what she really thought of her mental picture – Rachel, holding a beautiful little baby with soft brown hair and dark brown eyes hidden behind sleepy eyelids; Rachel, looking down at the little bundle of life that she had nurtured for 9 months… Rachel, turning to look into Quinn's eyes and saying with sheer reverence, "Quinn, look what I made…"
The rest of the glee club had been watching the scene play out with rapt attention, but they were quickly broken out of their trance when Mr. Schuester waltzed into the room, grabbing everyone's attention by clapping his hands together and excitedly proclaiming, "Ok guys, I've got this week's assignment for you!" As he turned to face everyone full on, he noticed the tension in the room.
"Guys? What's going on?" He surveyed the faces of individuals before stopping on Rachel. Her shoulders were uncharacteristically slumped, and her mouth was slightly opened as if the wind had just been knocked out of her. As everyone watched, a single tear fell from the corner of her eye onto her open notebook. "Rachel?" Schue questioned quietly. "Is everything ok?"
Her head snapped up, and she quickly and subtly wiped the residual wetness from her cheek before giving the teacher a forced half-smile. "Well. Yeah. Mr. Schue, everything's fine. I just… I just haven't been feeling well. I think I'll, umm… I'm going to go call one of my dads to come pick me up. I'm sorry, I'll get this week's assignment from you tomorrow in Spanish class if that's ok?" Regardless of his answer, she was obviously going to leave – she closed her notebook and stuck it in her bag, headed for the door.
"Uhh sure, Rachel. I hope you get to feeling better. We'll see you tomorrow," he waved slightly as the door closed behind her.
As Rachel left, Quinn's stomach sunk to her feet. She was disgusted with herself. The hurtful comments she said had obviously hit Rachel hard. Quinn knew she couldn't take them back though. Maybe she wouldn't, even if she could. She was Head Cheerleader, wasn't she? Wasn't it her job to uphold a certain image? If people didn't fear her, if people didn't whisper, "Oh yeah, that's the HBIC, don't get in her way," every time she strutted past with her ponytail bobbing, wasn't she doing something wrong?
"Ok guys," he clapped his hands together yet again, blissfully ignoring the still-shocked faces of his students. "Let's get started!"